 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(February 2022) |
In business, the utilization rate is an important number for firms that charge their time to clients and for those that need to maximize the productive time of their employees. It can reflect the billing efficiency or the overall productive use of an individual or a firm.
Looked at simply, there are two methods to calculate the utilization rate.
The first method calculates the number of billable hours divided by the number of hours recorded in a particular time period. For example, if 40 hours of time is recorded in a week but only 30 hours of that was billable, the utilization rate would then be 30 / 40 = 75%.
With this method, however, it's easy to see how this utilization rate can be gamed: if a business stops recording non-billable time, its utilization rate will always be 100%.
The second way to calculate the utilization rate is to take the number of billable hours and divide by a fixed number of hours per week. For example, if 32 hours of billable time are recorded in a fixed 40-hour week, the utilization rate would then be 32 / 40 = 80%.
Note that with this second method it is possible to have a utilization rate that exceeds 100%. If 50 hours of billable time are recorded in a fixed 40-hour week, then the utilization rate would be 50 / 40 = 125%.
Another consideration is the in-/exclusion of absent hours, e.g. leave or illness. Common practice is to exclude these from utilization calculations. Excluding absent hours can also help remove seasonality from utilization calculations. [1]
Differences in how utilization is measured can also drive different behaviors, and some organizations may employ multiple utilization measures. For instance, an independent professional services or consulting firm may rely solely on billable utilization. An organization that sells products as well as implementation or support services may utilize the notion of "productive" utilization, which also measures and rewards time on activities like product development that are important, but which may not be billed directly to a client.[ citation needed ]
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced in a specific time period by countries. GDP (nominal) per capita does not, however, reflect differences in the cost of living and the inflation rates of the countries; therefore, using a basis of GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) may be more useful when comparing living standards between nations, while nominal GDP is more useful comparing national economies on the international market. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of each industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the total population of the region is the per capita GDP and the same is called Mean Standard of Living.
In accountancy, depreciation refers to two aspects of the same concept: first, the actual decrease of fair value of an asset, such as the decrease in value of factory equipment each year as it is used and wear, and second, the allocation in accounting statements of the original cost of the assets to periods in which the assets are used.
A payroll is the list of employees of some company that is entitled to receive payments as well as other work benefits and the amounts that each should receive. Along with the amounts that each employee should receive for time worked or tasks performed, payroll can also refer to a company's records of payments that were previously made to employees, including salaries and wages, bonuses, and withheld taxes, or the company's department that deals with compensation. A company may handle all aspects of the payroll process in-house or can outsource aspects to a payroll processing company.
In marketing, customer lifetime value, lifetime customer value (LCV), or life-time value (LTV) is a prognostication of the net profit contributed to the whole future relationship with a customer. The prediction model can have varying levels of sophistication and accuracy, ranging from a crude heuristic to the use of complex predictive analytics techniques.
Output in economics is the "quantity of goods or services produced in a given time period, by a firm, industry, or country", whether consumed or used for further production. The concept of national output is essential in the field of macroeconomics. It is national output that makes a country rich, not large amounts of money.
Consumption of fixed capital (CFC) is a term used in business accounts, tax assessments and national accounts for depreciation of fixed assets. CFC is used in preference to "depreciation" to emphasize that fixed capital is used up in the process of generating new output, and because unlike depreciation it is not valued at historic cost but at current market value ; CFC may also include other expenses incurred in using or installing fixed assets beyond actual depreciation charges. Normally the term applies only to producing enterprises, but sometimes it applies also to real estate assets.
In accounting and economics, a semi-variable cost is an expense which contains both a fixed-cost component and a variable-cost component. It is often used to project financial performance at different scales of production. It is related to the scale of production within the business where there is a fixed cost which remains constant across all scales of production while the variable cost increases proportionally to production levels.
Credit card interest is a way in which credit card issuers generate revenue. A card issuer is a bank or credit union that gives a consumer a card or account number that can be used with various payees to make payments and borrow money from the bank simultaneously. The bank pays the payee and then charges the cardholder interest over the time the money remains borrowed. Banks suffer losses when cardholders do not pay back the borrowed money as agreed. As a result, optimal calculation of interest based on any information they have about the cardholder's credit risk is key to a card issuer's profitability. Before determining what interest rate to offer, banks typically check national, and international, credit bureau reports to identify the borrowing history of the card holder applicant with other banks and conduct detailed interviews and documentation of the applicant's finances.
Utilization is the primary method by which tool rental companies measure asset performance. In its most basic form it measures the actual revenue earned by assets against the potential revenue they could have earned.
Intersection Capacity Utilization (ICU) method is a tool for measuring a roadway intersection's capacity. It is ideal for transportation planning applications such as roadway design, congestion management programs and traffic impact studies. It is not intended for traffic operations or signal timing design. ICU is also defined as "the sum of the ratios of approach volume divided by approach capacity for each leg of intersection which controls overall traffic signal timing plus an allowance for clearance times." The ICU tells how much reserve capacity is available or how much the intersection is overcapacity. The ICU does not predict delay, but it can be used to predict how often an intersection will experience congestion.
For the application of engineering economics in the practice of civil engineering see Engineering economics.
Total absorption costing (TAC) is a method of Accounting cost which entails the full cost of manufacturing or providing a service. TAC includes not just the costs of materials and labour, but also of all manufacturing overheads. The cost of each cost center can be direct or indirect. The direct cost can be easily identified with individual cost centers. Whereas indirect cost cannot be easily identified with the cost center. The distribution of overhead among the departments is called apportionment.
An energy service company (ESCO) is a business that provides a broad range of energy solutions including designs and implementation of energy savings projects, retrofitting, energy conservation, energy infrastructure outsourcing, power generation and energy supply, and risk management.
Overall labor effectiveness (OLE) is a key performance indicator (KPI) that measures the utilization, performance, and quality of the workforce and its impact on productivity.
Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a measure of how well a manufacturing operation is utilized compared to its full potential, during the periods when it is scheduled to run. It identifies the percentage of manufacturing time that is truly productive. An OEE of 100% means that only good parts are produced, at the maximum speed, and without interruption.
Demand Flow Technology (DFT) is a strategy for defining and deploying business processes in a flow, driven in response to customer demand. DFT is based on a set of applied mathematical tools that are used to connect processes in a flow and link it to daily changes in demand. DFT represents a scientific approach to flow manufacturing for discrete production. It is built on principles of demand pull where customer demand is the central signal to guide factory and office activity in the daily operation. DFT is intended to provide an alternative to schedule-push manufacturing which primarily uses a sales plan and forecast to determine a production schedule.
Fixed annuities are insurance products which protect against loss and generally offer fixed rates of return. The rates are typically based on the current interest rate environment. They are offered by licensed and regulated insurance companies. State insurance/insolvency funds guarantees vary from state to state, and may not cover 100% of the Annuity Value. For example, in California the fund will cover "80% not to exceed $250,000."
Burstable billing is a method of measuring bandwidth based on peak use. It also allows usage to exceed a specified threshold for brief periods of time without the financial penalty of purchasing a higher committed information rate from an Internet service provider (ISP).
The valuation of nonmarket housework comprises attempts to attach value to non-exchange domestic tasks. Housework may include a variety of activities, particularly those traditionally associated with housekeeping, along with child care and nurturing. These activities have recognizable economic and social significance, but are not included in standard economic measurements, such as the gross domestic product (GDP). While the symbolic or subjective benefits of housework are difficult to measure, various attempts have been made to attach value to economically productive household activity.
Billable hours are hours worked by an employee for an employer that are billed to the employer's client. In certain professions, particularly in law firms, employees are required to bill a certain number of hours per month or per year, and those who bill more hours may obtain additional benefits such as larger bonuses or faster promotions. However, the practice of using billable hours has also been criticized for a number of reasons. Various forms of technology have been developed to track the billable hours generated by employees.
 | This business term article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |