1. User's Guide
  2. Working with Standard Profitability and Cost Management Applications
  3. Validating Standard Profitability Models
  4. Idle Capability

Idle Capability

The term, full capacity, indicates that all model resources are being fully used to perform a task or assignment.

The term, idle capability or idle capacity, indicates that some model resources are not being fully utilized. To maximize the use of resources, or to monitor inefficiencies, such as machine downtime, you may want to track idle capability.

You set the ability to calculate and report idle capability when you create or modify a driver, by selecting the Allow Idle option, and then entering a total driver quantity as part of the driver data.

The Idle cost or revenue on each node is reported in the IdleCost or IdleRevenue members in the Measures dimension.

These driver measures are related to idle capability for actual basis drivers only:

  • IdleDriverValue - Measure that is used as the driver value (DV) for calculating IdleCost.

  • TotalDriverValue - Idle costs are based on a total driver quantity calculated, based on driver data entered by the user.

  • EffectiveTotalDriverValue - Measure that is used to store the Effective Driver Total for those drivers for which the "Allow Idle" box has been selected on the source.

Idle capability is reported during structural validation of a model. If an unallocated remainder is detected, and the driver has not been set to allow idle capability, an error is generated.

Standard basis drivers are enabled to calculate idle capacity by default. If the total cost or revenue assigned is less than the NetCostForAssignment, then the remainder is stored as idle cost or revenue.

Example of Idle Cost for Standard Basis Drivers

Source X – 100 NetCostForAssignment assigned to 3 destinations (A,B,C)

  • Destination A – 30 CostReceived

  • Destination B – 30 CostReceived

  • Destination C – 30 CostReceived

Source X – NetCostForAssignment = 100

Total amount driven from X to all destinations (CostAssigned) = 90

IdleCost = 10

UnassignedCost = 0

You can view Idle Cost on the Stage Balancing Report. See Generating the Stage Balancing Report.