Two days booked, three days of work
The diary says two days for a nine-window house. It is two storeys, has a bay at the front, a door with a side panel and old timber frames that will not come out cleanly. The team is still there at four on day three. The next customer, who took Monday off, gets a call on Sunday evening.
Elsewhere a team finishes a small job by lunchtime and goes home, because nothing was booked for the afternoon.
Why days are the wrong unit
Window jobs vary enormously in the work they involve. A ground floor casement swap is quick. A bay with a structural pole, a first floor window needing access equipment or a door with a new cill takes much longer. When everything is booked as whole days, the diary cannot reflect that.
- Jobs are booked by the day based on a rough frame count.
- Upper floors, bays, doors and difficult removals are not weighted.
- Teams differ in size and experience, but are booked as if identical.
- Short gaps at the end of a day go unused.
- Access equipment and fixings availability are not part of the booking.
What bad capacity costs
Overbooked teams run late, push jobs and disappoint customers. Underbooked teams cost wages for idle time. Remedials and sealed unit jobs pile up because nobody sees the gaps they could fill. And the office spends its time rearranging rather than planning.
A planner that books by work, not days
- Each job's frame list comes from the survey or quote: types, sizes, floor level, bays, doors and removal difficulty.
- Your team sets fitting time rules for each kind of frame and condition, learned from their own experience.
- The planner estimates each job's fitting time and books it into a team's diary as the right number of hours or days.
- Team size and skills are taken into account, so a two-person team is not booked on a job that needs three, and door specialists get door work.
- Leftover time in a day is shown, and short jobs such as sealed units, remedials or adjustments can be dropped into it.
- Actual finish times are recorded, and the estimates are compared with them so your rules can be adjusted.
| Job factor | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Frame count and size | The base of the estimate |
| Upper floors | Access equipment and handling time |
| Bays and doors | More complex fitting and cills |
| Difficult removal | Old timber or steel frames take longer |
| Team size and skills | Who can do it and how quickly |
The time rules come from your fitters. We do not impose estimates, and they change as your records show what jobs really take.
What the diary looks like after
Jobs are booked for the time they actually need. Overruns become less common, and when they happen they are visible early. Small jobs fill the gaps at the end of a day, which clears the backlog of remedials. Fitting teams can see their week on their phones and trust it.
The estimates also help the sales side. When a customer asks how long their installation will take, the surveyor can give a realistic answer from the same rules the planner uses.
Is your diary booked by guesswork?
- Teams regularly run over on bigger jobs.
- Some teams finish early with nothing else booked.
- Remedial and sealed unit jobs wait weeks for a slot.
- Jobs are booked by the day regardless of frame count or access.