Constraint recipe
Workshop capacity is how many students can work at once, not whether the room appears free. Sixteen students with ten welding bays means six cannot work safely. Split the group, rotate stations across weeks, or reduce simultaneous demand. Practical sessions also need enough consecutive time for setup, work, and cleanup to be worth running.
Key takeaways
- Count stations, benches, bays, or machines, not only room availability.
- Rotations give equal hands-on time when students outnumber stations.
- Practical sessions need enough consecutive time plus cleanup between shifts.
- Shared workshops need clash checks across every cohort that uses them.
Capacity is stations, not the room booking
A room slot can be empty in the grid while the session is still impossible. If each student needs a bench, machine, or bay, the station count is the real limit, and it is usually smaller than the room's seat count.
When students outnumber stations, vocational schools split the cohort into rotations so each group gets equal hands-on time, with stations rotated on a weekly or two-week cycle so no two groups use the same station at once.
A worked example: 16 students, 10 bays
A fabrication class of 16 cannot use the welding shop's 10 bays at once. Split it into two groups of eight and alternate them between the shop and the theory room on a two-week cycle.
Two-week rotation for the practical session
| Week A | Week B | |
|---|---|---|
| Group 1 (8 students) | Welding bays | Theory, room 12 |
| Group 2 (8 students) | Theory, room 12 | Welding bays |
- Hands-on session
- Parallel theory session
The rotation costs something: a second teacher or supervisor for the parallel theory group, and a schedule where both sessions run in the same periods. Shared shops also serve several cohorts, and day and evening shifts on the same space need cleanup and transition time between them. The workshop and lab guide covers rotation patterns and shared facilities in more depth.
Plan capacity before placement
- List each workshop and its simultaneous workstations: bays, benches, machines, or kitchen stations.
- Map each practical activity to the equipment one student needs, and compare group sizes with station counts for every planned session.
- Split or rotate the groups that exceed capacity, as in the 16-on-10 example.
- Reserve enough adjacent periods for setup, work, and cleanup, and transition time between shifts on shared spaces.
- Check whether two cohorts need the same facility in the same periods before you commit the rotation.
Capacity mistakes
- Scheduling a full class into a shop with half the needed stations
- Using single periods for practical work that needs setup and cleanup time
- Letting two groups share one machine at the same time
In Smootables
Rooms carry a Capacity value, the maximum number of students, and the period screen's Validation Errors list flags capacity problems before generation, including the check that a period has enough rooms for the student groups that must run at the same time. Equipment is recorded under Resources with a Quantity and its Compatible rooms, which documents stations and kit for planning.
Station-level scheduling is still your arithmetic: the capacity checks count students against rooms, so a rotation like the 16-on-10 example above is something you design in the period plan, with the checks confirming each resulting group fits its room.
- Set each workshop's Capacity to its real simultaneous working places, not its floor area.
- Record station counts as equipment Quantity with Compatible rooms, and split groups in the period plan when students outnumber stations.
Quick answers
Is workshop capacity a hard constraint?
If the session cannot run safely without enough stations, yes. The rotation pattern around it can stay a preference.
What if the room is free but the equipment is not?
Treat equipment as its own capacity limit. A free room does not make an unsafe placement valid.