Thursday, December 07, 2023
Nail Your Labor Productivity Numbers
JLC Online: Estimating labor costs for an in-house crew is the most severe challenge facing estimators. That’s not surprising, because labor cost is the most difficult number to get right in cost forecasts for many types of production. In manufacturing, actual labor cost often varies from the projected “ideal” cost of labor by 100%. By the time bathroom breaks, overly long pauses for lunch, chattiness, absenteeism, turnover, equipment breakdown, and the impact of hazards on the factory floor have been figured in, labor hours actually spent to produce a given item may bear no resemblance to the hours projected in a manager’s quiet office.
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This was such an interesting read! At first glance, I was honestly a bit skeptical of using narrative historical labor productivity records as I felt like there are such different technologies and constructed products today, but as I read this I realized I was interpreting "historical labor productivity records" wrong, and it actually makes a lot of sense. To start to jot down data and information telling the story of each installation with characters, time and place would provide actual productivity figures and offer an accurate and personalized data base to estimate future projects. Currently people use cost catalogues and job cost records which are simply outdated or not accurate to the scope of projects. If we start building files now, I feel like it will really help improve estimation costs like this. I also wonder if things are stored in a database with a detailed story, we could probably use artificial intelligence to better help with the estimations.
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