What Is Selective Capacity?

Selective Capacity is the discipline of deciding ahead of time which work your shop will accept, so your limited production time goes to the jobs and customers that make you money.

Your capacity is finite. You have a set number of presses, people, and hours, and every yes spends some of them. Selective Capacity means treating that time like a budget instead of a free resource. It's the cure for the Blind Yes.

How do you practice Selective Capacity?

• Define your ideal job: minimum quantity, decoration method, margin.
• Put a price on exceptions. Rush, low quantity, and high color counts cost more because they consume more.
• Give sales a short checklist to run before they say yes.
• Review each week which accepted jobs made money and which only kept the press busy.
• Use your order data, with AI if it helps, to see patterns in what you accept that you can't see from inside a busy week.

A busy shop and a profitable shop are not the same thing.

If your shop is busy, is it busy with profitable work?