Resource planning

Resource and capacity planning
across every project

Resource and capacity planning software for industrial projects: Linetrack shows who is booked on which project and where a department runs over capacity. You see it while you plan, not when a deadline slips.

Utilization per department and week
Double bookings visible while planning
Availability from HR, time tracking and ERP

Linetrack software for resource and capacity planning in industrial projects

Summary

Resource and capacity planning decides who works on which project and when, and checks whether the hours are actually free, across all projects and departments. Resource planning software has to keep availability, project demand and utilization in one data basis, because separate department lists never show the total. Linetrack from Stuttgart ties capacity directly to schedule phases: when a phase moves, the utilization moves with it, and every double booking shows up the moment it is planned. It is in use at Stadler Rail and Schnaithmann Maschinenbau, among others.

91 %

of customers named
Excel and tool chaos as the starting problem

56 %

put a live interface
into operation within six months

1,512

industrial projects
run in parallel, platform-wide

4,000+

completed
industrial projects, platform-wide

All figures on this page come from a full survey of all productive Linetrack implementations, as of August 2026. Multiple answers were possible for the Excel/tool chaos and interface figures.

Terms

Resource planning vs. capacity planning: what the difference is

Resource planning answers who does a task: which person or team, with which skills. Capacity planning answers how many hours are free for it: availability minus vacation, absence and the hours other projects have already booked. Resource and capacity planning combines both and calculates them across projects. A plan only holds when the person assigned actually has time that week.

In project business this comes down to the shared departments: engineering, electrical design and assembly belong to no single project, every project draws on them. How to determine demand and build capacity is covered in the article on capacity planning methods. Roles, responsibilities and standards are covered in resource management in projects.

Symptoms

Where resource planning
breaks down across many projects

Resource conflicts rarely announce themselves. They show up in small, recurring patterns before they become an open problem.

Specialists booked twice

The same specialist is scheduled on two projects at once because neither plan knows about the other. The conflict surfaces only when both deadlines arrive together.

Capacity visible per department only

Each department knows its own workload, but nobody sees capacity across all projects and departments. Bottlenecks hide in the gap between the spreadsheets.

Commitments without a view of other projects

A project manager commits to a delivery date without knowing that the same department was booked for two other projects the week before.

Overload is noticed late

Only when a deadline slips or someone raises the alarm does it become visible that a department was planned beyond its capacity for weeks.

Bottlenecks

Why capacity bottlenecks never show up in a single plan

A bottleneck is almost never the fault of one plan. Each project books a reasonable share of the same department, and each file looks unremarkable on its own. The department is only overbooked in the total, and that total sits in no file.

That row is missing as long as resources are planned in project files or department lists. Where else the spreadsheet breaks in day-to-day operations is shown in Linetrack vs. Excel.

The overbooking sits between the files

Three projects, three plans, the same department in the same week. Sample values.

Project-A.xlsxAssembly, CW 4145 %Project-A.xlsx: 45 % of assembly capacity in CW 41.
Project-B.xlsxAssembly, CW 4140 %Project-B.xlsx: 40 % of assembly capacity in CW 41.
Project-C.xlsxAssembly, CW 4130 %Project-C.xlsx: 30 % of assembly capacity in CW 41.

Total assembly utilization115 % overbooked

No project plan reports a bottleneck. In Linetrack this total row is the view the department plans in, which is why the overbooking shows up while planning.

Capacity check

Capacity check: supply and demand per week

A capacity check puts two figures side by side. Supply is the time a department really has in a week: contracted hours minus vacation, sickness and training. Demand is the sum of the hours all projects have scheduled with it in the same week.

If demand is higher, there are four levers: move the task, split it across several people, outsource it or add capacity. Which lever is right depends on what it triggers in the other projects. That is why the check belongs in the same data basis as the schedule.

Engineering, CW 40 to 45

CW 40: supply 160 hours, demand 128 hours.
CW 41: supply 160 hours, demand 150 hours.
CW 42: supply 152 hours, demand 184 hours.
CW 43: supply 160 hours, demand 136 hours.
CW 44: supply 120 hours, demand 148 hours.
CW 45: supply 144 hours, demand 118 hours.

Sample values. Supply varies with vacation and absence, demand with project phases. In CW 42 and CW 44 demand exceeds supply.

The key point

Why resource planning belongs to the schedule

Capacity demand always sits on a schedule phase: engineering in CW 40 to 43, assembly in CW 44 to 46. That is why Linetrack plans dates and capacity in one model. When someone moves a phase, the utilization moves with it, and you see straight away whether the shift fits the company, the department and the people assigned.

The real point: every Gantt chart and schedule in the company refers to the same underlying model of departments, people and availability. That connects them automatically. Whatever one project books is missing for all the others, without anyone reconciling plans. The use case scheduling and capacity planning in one system shows how this works in detail.

The capacity data runs through the whole project. A forecast from sales is refined in rough-cut planning, split into tasks by the department and finally used for workforce scheduling. For that to hold down to the individual employee, the detailed planners in the departments have to work in the same system. That is the hardest part, and it is exactly why every department in Linetrack has its own planning view.

Assembly, CW 40 to 47

Baseline

Sample values. The utilization moves with the phase. The department can absorb the shift, but one fitter would also be booked on Project A in CW 44 and 45.

The same data, increasingly detailed

1ForecastRough hours per department behind schedule ranges, without blocking capacity yet.
2Rough-cut planningOnce the project is won, the hours become binding and occupy capacity.
3Detailed planningThe department splits its hours into tasks and people.
4Workforce schedulingAssigned by name and checked against every other project.

Requirements

What resource planning software has to do

Resource planning software for industrial projects has to do more than keep a booking table. It has to calculate capacity from real availability, bring together the demand of all projects and show conflicts before anyone commits. Six requirements matter:

Linetrack meets these six requirements in one system. The details follow below.

Cross-project utilization: per department, team and person, across all running and planned projects.
Capacity from real availability: contracted hours minus vacation and absence, taken from HR, time tracking or ERP.
Conflicts shown while planning: double bookings and overload appear the moment they are created.
Schedule and capacity connected: when a task moves, its demand moves with it, without a second list.
Simulation before the decision: try moving, splitting or outsourcing and see the effect on other projects.
Departments plan for themselves: team and department leads assign their people, the project manager sees the result right away.

Solution

Why Linetrack is the right resource and capacity planning software

Pure resource tools don't know the schedule, pure scheduling tools don't know capacity. Linetrack keeps both in one data basis, and the departments plan in it too.

The resource manager in Linetrack

Forecasts in outline planning, bookings at staff level, utilization in central view. The features for utilization and forecasting in detail.

Connected to the schedule

Every task carries its hours. When the date moves, utilization moves with it. Scheduling and capacity planning in one system.

Built for many parallel projects

From 5 to over 270 projects running in parallel per customer: utilization always covers the whole portfolio, never a single project.

USP 1

Utilization across all projects at a glance

The resource overview shows every department week by week: green is free, red is overloaded. The percentage in each cell is the total of all projects drawing on that department that week, not the share of a single project.

Expand a department to see which projects and tasks create the load. The red cell turns into a concrete question for a concrete project manager.

Utilization per department, team and person in weeks or months

Underload, optimum and overload clearly separated

Drill down from department to individual task

External capacity such as subcontracted production as its own row

Resource overview in Linetrack: utilization of engineering, assembly and production per calendar week across all projects, overload marked in red

USP 2

Capacity that comes from real availability

A department's capacity is not maintained by hand in Linetrack. It results from the availability of each employee, minus vacation and absence. When someone is out, the department's capacity drops at the same moment, and every week that tips over turns red.

Availability comes from the system where it is already recorded: time tracking, HR or ERP. Which systems can be connected is shown in the overview of Linetrack integrations.

Capacity	Department list
Source	Estimated by hand	From availability
Vacation, sickness	Added when someone remembers	Deducted automatically
Up to date	As of the last update	As of the source
Against demand	Compared by hand	In the same view

Department view in Linetrack: capacity and utilization per employee, calculated from availability minus vacation and absence

USP 3

Assign by name, with the other projects in view

The project manager plans the demand: this many assembly hours in these weeks. Who exactly takes it on is the department's call. Team and department leads drag the tasks onto their people and see skills, vacation and everything the same person already has booked on other projects.

Responsibility stays where the knowledge is. How sales, project management and departments plan one after another is described in the use case scheduling and capacity planning in one system.

Demand per task in hours, assignment to people by the department

Each person's bookings across all projects in one row

Vacation and absence right in the planning view

Staff booking in Linetrack: assembly employees with their tasks from Project 6 and Project 7 per calendar week

USP 4

Test bottlenecks before you commit

A customer asks whether assembly can start two weeks earlier. In Linetrack the shift can be set up as a scenario before anyone says yes. Utilization of every affected department is then calculated for both variants.

Nothing is rescheduled automatically. Linetrack shows the consequences, the project manager decides and records the decision in the system. Try it on the chart.

Utilization per department, CW 40 to 47

Baseline

Utilization per department, CW 40 to 47	CW 40	CW 41	CW 42	CW 43	CW 44	CW 45	CW 46	CW 47
Engineering	Engineering, CW 40: 78 percent	Engineering, CW 41: 84 percent	Engineering, CW 42: 92 percent	Engineering, CW 43: 88 percent	Engineering, CW 44: 74 percent	Engineering, CW 45: 70 percent	Engineering, CW 46: 66 percent	Engineering, CW 47: 60 percent
Electrical design	Electrical design, CW 40: 64 percent	Electrical design, CW 41: 72 percent	Electrical design, CW 42: 96 percent	Electrical design, CW 43: 104 percent	Electrical design, CW 44: 86 percent	Electrical design, CW 45: 72 percent	Electrical design, CW 46: 58 percent	Electrical design, CW 47: 52 percent
Assembly	Assembly, CW 40: 62 percent	Assembly, CW 41: 70 percent	Assembly, CW 42: 78 percent	Assembly, CW 43: 82 percent	Assembly, CW 44: 72 percent	Assembly, CW 45: 128 percent	Assembly, CW 46: 96 percent	Assembly, CW 47: 64 percent
Commissioning	Commissioning, CW 40: 40 percent	Commissioning, CW 41: 45 percent	Commissioning, CW 42: 50 percent	Commissioning, CW 43: 55 percent	Commissioning, CW 44: 60 percent	Commissioning, CW 45: 70 percent	Commissioning, CW 46: 80 percent	Commissioning, CW 47: 112 percent

Sample values. Bringing it forward removes the assembly overload in CW 45 and the commissioning overload in CW 47, but creates a new assembly overload in CW 43 and 44. That is exactly the trade-off that should be on the table before you commit.

Comparison

Resource planning with Excel and ERP or in one system

Most industrial companies plan resources today in Excel lists per department, supplemented by ERP reports. Each covers a part, but neither connects availability, project demand and schedule. The individual comparisons: Linetrack vs. Excel, Linetrack vs. ERP project module and Linetrack vs. detailed scheduling system.

Requirement	Excel lists / ERP reports
Utilization across all projects	Only by copying together	One view per department
See conflicts while planning	Noticed later	Flagged immediately
Capacity from availability	Estimated, maintained by hand	From HR, time tracking, ERP
Schedule and capacity connected	Two systems, manual matching	One data basis
Calculate a shift in advance	Not possible	Scenario with all effects
Departments plan along	Each in its own file	In the same plan

Industries

Resource planning by industry

Which resource is scarce depends on the industry. In machine building it is engineering, on the construction site it is the crew. In development departments internal initiatives compete with customer projects.

Machine and plant engineering

Designers, fitters and plant technicians across many long-running projects at once.

Special machine building

One-off production with a few specialists that every customer order needs.

Building and energy technology

Planners and fitters spread across many sites with changing dates.

Construction and infrastructure

Allocating crews and equipment across several sites.

Scope

What Linetrack deliberately does not do in resource planning

Linetrack plans project resources. A few things people also search for under the term belong in other systems:

No time tracking. Linetrack takes availability and actual hours from the system where they are recorded.
No shift or duty rostering. Who runs which shift on which machine stays in the HR or shift planning system.
No machine scheduling. Detailed production scheduling stays in the scheduling system, as the comparison with a detailed scheduling system shows.
No automatic rescheduling. Linetrack calculates variants, people decide.

Where capacity comes from

Time tracking, HR, ERPAvailabilityContracted hours, vacation, absence per person
LinetrackCapacity against demandAvailability against the demand of all projects
DepartmentFree hours per weekConflicts visible before anyone commits

Actual hours flow back and show where the plan deviates from reality.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Still have questions?

Book a call with our team.

What is resource and capacity planning?

Resource and capacity planning decides which people and teams work on which project and when, and checks at the same time whether enough hours are free for it. In companies with many parallel projects it has to run across projects, because the same departments are drawn on by all of them.

What is the difference between resource planning and capacity planning?

Resource planning assigns tasks to people or teams and settles who does what. Capacity planning calculates how many hours a department has in a period and how many of them are already booked. In practice the two belong together: an assignment is only as good as the capacity behind it.

How are scheduling and resource planning connected?

Capacity demand always sits on a schedule phase. Planning dates and resources separately means every shift has to be carried over by hand. In Linetrack, every Gantt chart and schedule refers to the same underlying model of departments, people and availability. When a phase moves, the utilization moves with it, and the check against company, department and employee runs immediately. More in the use case scheduling and capacity planning.

Which software is suitable for resource planning in projects?

For companies with many parallel projects, the right software shows utilization across projects, calculates capacity from real availability and is connected to the schedule. Pure resource management software without dates, or pure scheduling tools without capacity, each leave half the question open. Linetrack combines both and is used in machine and plant engineering, building technology and development departments. The individual features are described on the page about the resource manager in Linetrack.

Is an Excel list enough for resource planning?

For a single small project, often yes. As soon as several projects share the same people, an Excel list reaches its limits: it shows the load of one project, not the total of all projects. 91 % of Linetrack customers named Excel and tool chaos as the starting problem before they switched. How the switch works is described in Replacing Excel in project management.

How do you spot capacity bottlenecks early?

Only by looking at capacity across projects rather than per department. Once the utilization of all projects is visible on one shared data basis, a bottleneck shows up as soon as it forms, not when a deadline has already slipped. If you don't want to open the utilization view yourself, you can also ask the AI assistant.

Where does employee availability come from?

From the system where it is already maintained: time tracking, HR or ERP. Linetrack takes contracted hours, vacation and absences via an interface and calculates capacity per person and department from them. Where no interface exists yet, availability can also be set centrally in Linetrack.

Does Linetrack reschedule automatically when a project moves?

No. Linetrack shows the effect of a shift on other projects and departments as a simulation, nothing is rescheduled automatically. People make the decision and then record it in the system.

Is Linetrack software for workforce scheduling or shift planning?

Workforce scheduling within projects, yes. Shift and duty rostering, no. Linetrack plans who takes on which task in which week and whether the hours are free. This workforce scheduling grows out of the same capacity data as the forecast and rough-cut planning and is not entered again. Who runs which shift on which machine stays in the HR or shift planning system, from which Linetrack takes the availability.

What does resource and capacity planning software cost?

Linetrack is licensed modularly, from €10 per user per month. Resource and capacity planning is one module. Which modules a company actually needs depends on its size and project landscape.

How many employees is resource and capacity planning with Linetrack suitable for?

In practice most Linetrack customers have between 20 and 300 employees and up to more than 30 departments. That is not a hard limit but the range where a shared data basis makes the biggest difference. Stadler Rail, a much larger company, also uses Linetrack in production.

Case study

How Schnaithmann plans resources across departments

At Schnaithmann Maschinenbau, departments worked with their own isolated planning lists, and the old project management system did not provide the transparency needed. Today scheduling and resource planning run across departments in Linetrack, from the sales phase to project tracking. How it went in detail is described in the Schnaithmann case study.

From the same industry: MSG Solutions uses Linetrack as its central platform for scheduling and resource planning and has fully replaced its old PM tool. LANG Technik plans development and automation projects collaboratively across departments. Krüger & Salecker has tracked its project data in one place ever since.