Review Capacity Lab

Find the review queue your team can actually absorb.

Compare incoming work with protected human review hours. Change the assumptions to see where unfinished work accumulates.

Worked examples. All values are illustrative.

Your assumptions

One work class.

Changing a unit keeps the entered number and recalculates.

Incoming requests

Include all arrivals. For continuous intake, use a complete week or month total.

Requests needing review (%)

A workload assumption, not permission to skip required review.

First review effort per case

Enter active effort, including long activities. Exclude time simply waiting.

Qualified reviewers

Protected hours per reviewer per workday

Count time reserved for this queue, after other duties.

Returned work

Reviewed cases needing one extra pass (%)

Extra effort per returned case

Exactly one extra pass. Repeated returns are not modeled.

Planning window

Starting queue (review cases)

Each queued case carries the same average review workload.

Workdays to model

Chosen capacity target (%)

80% is an example you can change. It is not a safety standard.

Work calendar and unit assumptions

Intake hours per workday

Used only to convert requests per intake hour.

Active hours in one effort workday

A workday of effort has this many hours, regardless of protected review time.

Workdays per workweek

Average workdays per month

An assumed average working month, not a dated calendar forecast.

Results update as you edit. Invalid inputs hide the results.

Demand and capacity

Per workday.

Review demand: 16 h192 reviewed cases per workday.
Protected team capacity: 8 h2 reviewers × 4 hours.
Demand / capacity: 200%Offered load, not actual utilization.
Backlog after 10 workdays: 80 h960 review-case equivalents.

At your chosen target

80% of protected capacity.

Maximum new intake
Reviewers for new intake
Reviewers to clear starting backlog too
Average effort per reviewed case

New-intake figures exclude existing backlog. Backlog staffing spreads its workload across your selected window.

Unfinished review work

Deterministic daily totals.

Day 0 is the starting queue. The table below contains the same values.

Show daily values

Review workload by workday
Workday	New demand (h)	Completed work (h)	Queue at end (h)	Case equivalents

How the model works

Use one work class whose reviewers can substitute for one another. Rates and effort are converted using the work calendar above.

Convert request rates to requests per workday, and active review effort to minutes.
Minutes per reviewed case = first-review minutes + extra-pass fraction × extra-pass minutes.
Review demand = requests × review fraction × minutes per reviewed case.
Team capacity = qualified reviewers × protected hours × 60 minutes.
Tomorrow's queue = maximum of zero and today's queue + new demand − capacity.
Maximum intake = chosen target × capacity ÷ review workload per incoming request.
Reviewer counts round up. Backlog-clearing staffing includes starting queue workload divided by modeled workdays.

Case equivalents divide remaining work by average review time. They can be fractional; real approvals remain whole decisions.

At exact capacity, an empty queue stays empty in this model. Any starting backlog remains, with no room for interruptions.

This model pools effort. It does not schedule individual cases. A long review assigned to one person cannot finish sooner merely because other people have spare hours.

This model omits within-day bursts, reviewer scheduling, fatigue, skill differences, and repeated returns. It estimates remaining workload, not actual waiting times, case completion dates, or decision quality. Staffing figures describe pooled capacity. A target below 100% is an assumption to investigate, not evidence that a workflow is safe.