Aerospace production capacity planning follows the three-tier JD Edwards EnterpriseOne model: Resource Requirements Planning (RRP) for the 12-month to three-year horizon, Rough Cut Capacity Planning (RCCP) at critical work centers, and Capacity Requirements Planning (CRP) which matches available personnel and equipment hours to MRP-loaded requirements [S5].
Capacity is defined as the maximum output a fixed-asset base can sustain under stated organization and technology conditions, evaluated per production line, per plant, and across the system as a whole, with the plan-alter-vs-capacity-alter decision sitting at the heart of every review cycle [S6].
Three planning horizons, three different decisions
RRP runs after the long-term forecast and before Master Scheduling, producing capacity plans by critical work center with a planning horizon between 12 months and three years, and is the tool used to answer questions about facility expansion, new equipment capital expenditure, and staffing loads [S5]. RCCP operates on the same critical work centers but at a shorter interval, flagging capacity constraints before the detailed CRP pass consumes shop-floor data, while CRP is the gate that ultimately decides whether the MRP plan is releasable as-is or whether additional skilled labor, new machinery, or floor space must be added [S5]. For aerospace tier-1s and tier-2s running mix-model lines, the practical interpretation is that RRP answers 'do we need a fifth 5-axis CNC by FY28', RCCP answers 'can the autoclave bank absorb the A350 work-package next quarter', and CRP answers 'is the actual lamination shift pattern feasible for ship-set 417'.
What aerospace borrows from software capacity planning, and what it does not
WebLogic Server capacity planning decomposes system load into measurable factors: RMI and server traffic, SSL connections, process load, database capacity, concurrent sessions, network load, and clustered configurations, with hardware sizing derived from benchmark TPS (transactions per second) on linear and horizontal scalability curves [S3]. Aerospace production planning borrows the decomposition discipline, breaking a ship-set into routings of minutes-per-operation, but rejects the horizontal-scale assumption: adding a second autoclave requires AS9100-qualified heat-up profiles, Nadcap-accredited NDT, and FAA/CAAC process approvals that no amount of CPU-on-demand can replicate, so the linear-scalability shortcut from IT capacity models does not transfer to layup-and-cure lines [S3].
Selection criteria: matching the bottleneck type to the planning method
The choice of planning method is driven by the dominant constraint. Tool-bound bottlenecks such as autoclaves, autoclave-rated ovens, large CNC skin-mills, and composite autoclaves need RCCP because their bottleneck hour-budget is fixed and pre-bookable, while labor-bound bottlenecks in structural assembly, wire harness build, or system installation need CRP because available hours fluctuate with shift patterns, training rotations, and clearance gating [S5]. Space-bound bottlenecks, increasingly common in MRO hangars and final-assembly jigs, are best handled at the RRP tier where the answer is a capital project rather than a routing tweak. Decision logic can be reduced to: if the constraint is booked in hours per shift, use CRP; if it is booked in days per campaign, use RCCP; if the answer is bricks-and-mortar, use RRP.
For whom, and for whom not
Capacity planning of this tiered kind is for production engineering teams, industrial engineering managers, and master schedulers at airframe, engine, and major-equipment OEMs running discrete ship-set or lot production against an MPS or MRP, and at tier-1 aerostructure suppliers where AS9100 and Nadcap audit trails demand that capacity decisions be evidence-based and version-controlled. It is not for rate-only build-to-print shops with a single product, not for aftermarket MRO where capacity is sold by the man-hour rather than planned, and not for software-defined aerospace functions such as flight-deck analytics where IT capacity frameworks like Elasticsearch cluster-shard sizing, which treats shard count as workload-dependent with no universal answer, are the more relevant reference model [S4]. For shop-floor control and PLC sequencing, capacity planning feeds but does not replace the line-side scheduling logic.
Concrete comparison of the three methods on decision criteria
RRP, RCCP, and CRP line up against four criteria as follows. Horizon: RRP runs 12 months to three years, RCCP runs weeks to months, CRP runs days to weeks. Data granularity: RRP works at product family level, RCCP at critical work center, CRP at operation-and-resource-unit level. Output action: RRP drives capital expenditure and facility decisions, RCCP drives shift-pattern and subcontractor decisions, CRP drives order-release and routing-release decisions. Reaction loop: RRP is updated quarterly or annually, RCCP weekly to monthly, CRP daily inside the MRP regeneration cycle [S5]. In an aerospace context, this maps to typical decision latencies: a 5-axis gantry capacity decision sits in the RRP column with a 2-3 year lead time on procurement and installation, an autoclave-load decision sits in the RCCP column with a 1-4 week campaign lead, and a fastener-install sequencing decision sits in the CRP column with a shift-by-shift resolution.
Limits, failure modes, and standards overlap
The most common failure mode in aerospace capacity planning is treating forecast as plan, with demand forecast misread as the actual schedule and fed into the resource model unmodified, which inflates capacity requirement figures and triggers over-investment in bottleneck assets [S5]. A second failure is running RCCP against non-critical work centers, which produces false comfort because RCCP only has signal value at the genuine critical work centers of a line, and a third is publishing CRP output without having validated the work-center available hours, since CRP matches available hours to required hours and any error in available-hours calculation propagates linearly into the release decision [S5]. Standards interaction: an aerospace RP must satisfy AS9100 clause 8.5.1 on controlled production, Nadcap AC7118 for heat-treat and AC7110 for composites auditability, and FAA conformity inspection under 14 CFR 21, with capacity evidence flowing into first-article qualification packages rather than living in a standalone planning document.
Trackable signals to watch in 2026: whether the published RRP horizon at major airframe OEMs compresses from three years toward two as single-aisle order books stretch into the late 2020s, and whether RCCP windows at tier-1 aerostructure suppliers shorten from monthly to weekly as digital-twin capacity models displace spreadsheet reviews. Tooling footprint decisions tied to composite autoclave lead times and to servo-motor-driven 5-axis machining centers remain the dominant RRP-class capital signals, while layup-staff certification throughput is the dominant RCCP-class labor signal.
Spec-level background on the components involved: pressure transmitter.
This topic is covered further in Satellite manufacturing cost breakdown: bus, payload, and qualification drivers.