# Hourly output

The hourly capacity is that of a worker or machine during an hour yielded power .

## General

The term hourly output is mainly known in business administration and electrical engineering . What both disciplines have in common in terms of hourly performance is that performance is measured over an hour.

In business administration, the hourly output is a business key figure that reflects the performance (for example, sales revenue ) per hour worked . Heinrich von Stackelberg already defined the hourly output of a worker in 1941 as "the amount of work product achieved during the individual hour". It is one of many metrics for measuring productivity :

${\ displaystyle {\ text {Hourly output}} = {\ frac {\ text {Sales volume}} {\ text {Working hours}}}}$.

The hourly output and thus productivity improve if a higher sales volume can be produced with constant working hours .

If the work intensity of a worker is influenced by machines ( e.g. assembly line work ), the hourly output is determined exclusively by the running speed of the machines and - at a given speed - is constant over time. However, if the work performance is largely determined by the individual work curve , work suffering , work motivation , disposition , ability or the will of the worker , then the work performance is at the start of work at a low level and increases through habituation to a maximum, and then gradually decreases again due to fatigue . However, the actual hourly output is not bimodal like the work curve, because it can be assumed that physiological performance troughs are bridged by work breaks. Hourly output and operating time are positively correlated, because the duration of the operating time influences the possible hourly output.

## Electrical engineering

In electrical engineering, hourly output is the output that an electrical machine (for example an electric motor or a transformer ) can generate for one hour from a cold state without heating up excessively. The continuous output can be provided for as long as you like without the machine getting too hot. The indication of the hourly output as nominal output was previously common for machines that are typically exposed to changing loads, such as electric locomotives . Today, continuous operation is assumed to be rated operation.

In addition to the hourly output, the short-term output is also of interest for electric locomotives . For electric locomotives, this is limited to three to a maximum of ten minutes, depending on the type of locomotive and power level, and can be called up in situations that require particularly high power (accelerating heavy trains, driving on steep ramps). Several components of the locomotive, in particular the transformer and oil and the electric motors, heat up so much that they then need a longer cooling phase, during which the maximum continuous output can be called up. Once the temperatures have dropped accordingly, the short-term power can be called up again without causing permanent damage to the components due to overheating.

## literature

• Rolf Hüpen, Working Hours, Operating Hours and Employment , 1994
• Th. Buchhold, F. Trawnik: The electrical equipment of the direct current railways including the overhead lines . Published by Julius Springer, Berlin 1931.