labahanOperations
How many loads can your shop do a day? Washers, dryers and ready times
By the Labahan team · October 18, 2026 · 3 min read
Late loads usually aren’t about lazy staff. They happen when the shop promises more than the machines can do. A few minutes with a calculator tells you your real daily capacity.
The formula
Use the full cycle time, including loading, unloading and the minutes the machine stands idle between loads, not just the time on the dial.
A worked example
Example shop: 4 washers with a 35-minute cycle, 4 dryers with a 45-minute cycle, open 12 hours (720 minutes), plus 10 minutes of loading and unloading per cycle.
The shop can only finish as many loads as its slowest step. Here it is the dryers: about 52 loads a day, not 64. If you accept 70 loads, 18 of them will be late, no matter how hard the staff work.
What to do with this number
- Set ready times from it. When today’s loads pass your capacity, the next drop-offs are ready tomorrow, and the stub should say so.
- Price express honestly. Express jumps the queue, so limit how many you take on busy days.
- Fix the bottleneck first. Cleaning lint filters, not overloading dryers and checking dryer vents can shorten drying time. A new dryer often adds more than a new washer.
- Fill the quiet hours. Self-service or discounts in slow hours use machine time that would otherwise be wasted.
Keep machines running back to back
A machine that finishes and waits 15 minutes for someone to notice loses about one load every few hours. A timer that tells staff the moment a cycle ends is one of the cheapest ways to add capacity.
How Labahan helps
In Labahan Manager, staff pick the machine when a load starts washing or drying. The Board shows each washer and dryer as free, running or done, and the phone beeps when a cycle ends. Every load has a promised time, and late loads turn red, so you see when you are taking on more than the machines can do.
