Capacity
The word ‘capacity’ refers to the maximum amount that can be produced, contained or accepted by a component or system.
In the construction industry, the word ‘capacity’ might refer to:
- Occupant capacity of a building or space.
- Heat capacity.
- Load bearing capacity or bearing capacity.
- The maximum capacity of a product or system such as a road or rail network, heating system, battery, data storage system and so on.
- The capacity of an organisation such as a supplier to take on and complete a piece of work. This will be dependent on the availability of appropriate staff, equipment and other resources, other work that the organisation is undertaking and so on. This can also refer more widely to a particular sector of industry, as for example in the CIOB report Capacity Constraints in Construction: Rethinking the Business Environment, which looks at the capacity of the construction industry as a whole.
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