Installation labor and productivity estimating · Lesson 1 of 4

Installation labor and productivity estimating: principles and terminology

The words an installer uses to estimate field labor: quantity, production rate, labor-hours, crew, duration and productivity multiplier, with a worked example and the safety limits that stay in the estimate.

You will be able to: Define production rate, labor-hour, crew, duration and productivity multiplier, compute hours and crew-days from a quantity and a rate, and state the safety rules that no productivity target overrides.

10 min · 8 slides · 9 questions

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Slide 1 of 8

Why installation labor is its own estimate

The AFS order tracker currently shows these stages (labels may change): Order Received, Acknowledged, In Production Queue, Cutting, Forming, Quality Check, Ready, Shipped, Delivered.

The AFS order tracker ends at Delivered. Installation labor is not a tracker stage, so this module estimates it on its own.

Every rate here is published or a teaching number, never an AFS measurement.

Sources

AFS order tracker: the production stages shown on a customer order - Architectural Flashing Supply

Glossary

Labor productivity: Output produced per labor hour of input, as Hanna defines it in a study of sheet-metal contractors.
Production rate: The output of a crew or person per unit of time for one task, such as feet installed per person-hour. UFC 3-740-05 says each task needs a production rate established for it; a rate is an assumption until it is measured.
Labor-hour: One person working for one hour. Labor-hours = quantity / production rate when the rate is per person-hour.
Crew: The number and mix of workers assigned to a task, sized to finish within the schedule and within the limits of the workspace (UFC 3-740-05).
Duration: Calendar time for a task. It depends on crew size and hours worked per day; labor-hours measure effort, duration measures elapsed time.
Productivity multiplier: Relative productivity under a condition, where a standard workhour equals one; 0.863 means 86.3 percent as productive (Hanna).
Composite wage rate: Base wage plus overtime, payroll taxes and insurance, fringe benefits, and travel or subsistence (UFC 3-740-05). It is applied to labor-hours after the hours are found.