Unitshour

Unitshour is a productivity metric used to quantify the rate at which units are completed in one hour. The term is often treated as a shorthand for units produced per hour and can be adapted to reflect quality or operational conditions. It is typically applied at production lines, shifts, or entire facilities.

Calculation: Net unitshour = number of good units produced divided by hours worked. Gross unitshour may use total units started and completed divided by hours worked, while effective unitshour can incorporate downtime, maintenance, or rework. In practice, calculations can be performed at different aggregation levels, such as per work cell or per plant.

Applications: used in manufacturing, packaging, and logistics to inform scheduling, capacity planning, and performance assessment. It is often reported alongside related metrics such as cycle time, throughput, yield, and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).

Limitations: unitshour provides a high-level view of output rate but does not by itself measure task complexity, mix of products, or quality. It can be distorted by scrapped or reworked units and by planned or unplanned downtime. For a balanced view, it is typically interpreted with complementary metrics.

History and standards: The term is common in industry contexts but lacks formal standardization. It has appeared in internal reports, operations-management literature, and benchmarking studies as a straightforward, easy-to-communicate performance indicator.