Metrics & reporting
What is utilization rate?
Utilization rate is the share of available time a 3D printer spends actually printing, expressed as a percentage of the hours it could have been running.
Also known as: printer utilization, machine utilization
How it is calculated
Utilization = printing hours ÷ available hours
The definition of “available” is where the number gets argued about. Three common bases:
- Calendar hours (24/7): appropriate for a farm running lights-out.
- Staffed hours: appropriate for a lab that can only start jobs when someone is present.
- Scheduled hours: available time minus planned maintenance.
Pick one and state it. A utilization figure without its denominator is not comparable to anything.
What it is good for, and what it is not
Utilization is the number that justifies capital requests: it distinguishes “we need more printers” from “we need better scheduling on the printers we have”. It is a poor performance target on its own, because it can be inflated by running low-value work, and it says nothing about whether the output was any good. Pair it with success rate.