If you have thought about how to optimize the production of low volume products, which requires highly skilled operators or costly machines, you might end up search with load chart. So read on to get a complete understanding on this topic. Load chart is a tool for scheduling, monitoring and tracing of production. You will also get an downloadable excel template at the end of this article.
Load chart is used for products which have high throughput time.

Download Load Chart Excel Template - Scheduling, Monitoring and Tracing
Plan and monitor production using our ready-to-use Load Chart Excel Template. Schedule operations, track planned versus actual hours, identify delays, and improve machine or operator utilization - all in one simple, editable file.
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Download your templateWhat is a load chart
Load chart is a tool used for better utilization of manpower or costly machines in a well organized manner. Load chart contains the following;
- List of activities or operations to be carried out for manufacturing a product
- Time required for carrying out each activities or operations
- Corresponding machines or equipment against each activities or operations
- A time frame for carrying out each activities or operations
- A space or area for scheduling activities or operations
- A space or area for comparing actual time taken and ideal time for manufacturing a product
The above all details will be well arranged in a chart, for getting it intended use.
Uses of load chart
So few of the points are listed below.
- Even distribution of work elements for each manpower based on their skill.
- Calculation of manpower utilization will be more accurate
- Traceability of work content for customer quality requirements.
- Effective utilization of critical facilities and skilled manpower helps to reduce production cost.
Types of manufacturing and load chart
Load chart can be applied to Job shop manufacturing and fixed position layout type manufacturing.
In Job shop type manufacturing, produces custom made products in small batches because of the lesser demand, but will need dedicated processes, in which most process will require skilled labor and special machineries. So for better utilization of these costly manpower and machineries we need proper planning, which brings profit to the organization. But it needs to be properly conveyed to both management executives and operators at the same time. So there you have it, the purpose of load chart.
In fixed position layout, machines and operators move around products.
Load Chart – Excel template download
Now its time to download load chart excel template.
Please purchase the template from the above section.

How to use Load chart template
There will be two sheets in the excel file;
- Load chart
- Product details.
Refer the picture below.

Now enter following details in ‘product details’ sheet.
- Part no of item to be produced
- Code for load chart (used for mentioning it in load chart, color code it for easy identification)
- List of its operations
- Cycle time of each operations
- Machines used for each operations
Refer the picture below.

After entering product details we are ready to use Load chart.
Now take ‘load chart’ sheet.
There will be following sections in the sheet;
- Machine
- Schedule
- Actual
- Date
- Hours
- Utilization
Now schedule each hours of machines according to the cycle time and operation order. Refer picture below. Use color coded code for scheduling.

After scheduling, mark the actual hours taken for scheduled operations. Refer picture below. Some times it will take more than scheduled hours.

Now you can see utilization of machines, for schedule and actual.
Also we can compare actual time taken and ideal cycle time using load chart.
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thank you very much for sharing these contents, I appreciated a lot and surely will use them
Very good article.
Thanks Nikunj
Informative article
Thanks Insha
Value adding article as this was a new tool for me but it seems really useful