Grading Line & Hours, Days & Crew

Hours needed = lot size ÷ the line's rated capacity in kg per hour. Days needed = hours ÷ your working hours per day. Labour hours = hours × number of workers, and throughput per worker = capacity ÷ workers. This tool computes all of these so you can plan crew and shifts around the lot in front of you.

Rated capacity is how much produce a sorting or grading line can process per hour (kg/h), as quoted by the maker or measured on your line. Real throughput is usually a little below the rating because of feed gaps, blockages, changeovers and quality checks, so use an honest working figure rather than the brochure peak.

At peak harvest, fruit and vegetables arrive faster than a small line can grade them, so a backlog builds, produce waits and quality drops. Sizing the line — or the crew and hours — to the busiest day's arrivals keeps the lot moving while it's fresh and avoids the bottleneck that costs you grade and price.

More workers on a line lift effective throughput up to the machine's limit and cut the labour hours per kg of waste, but each adds cost. The throughput-per-worker figure shows output per person, which is handy for comparing crew sizes and deciding whether another hand or a faster line is the better spend.

Use the productive hours your line actually runs per day — typically 6–10 hours once you allow for setup, breaks, cleaning and shutdown. If you run multiple shifts, enter the combined running hours. Honest working hours give realistic days-needed figures so you can plan the harvest window properly.

Yes — enter a single day's arrivals as the lot and your working hours: if hours needed exceeds your working hours, the line can't clear that day and a backlog grows. Either add a shift, add crew, or move to a higher-capacity line. The days-needed figure makes the gap obvious.

No — it sizes the grading or sorting step from its own kg/h capacity. Washing, waxing, drying and packing are separate stages with their own rates; the slowest stage sets the line's true throughput. Plan each step, then balance them so no single station becomes the bottleneck.

Yes — enter the lot in kg, quintal or tonne and the capacity in kg/h, and it works for any graded crop: apples, citrus, potatoes, onions, tomatoes and more. Different produce grades at different rates, so use the capacity figure that matches your line and that crop.

They are solid planning figures. Real throughput varies with produce condition, sizing splits, downtime and worker experience. Time a known lot on your line to calibrate the capacity figure, then re-use it for planning — the calculator is for steering the harvest window, not stopwatch precision.