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Can Estimating Software Programs Perform Labor Analysis using Labor System Unit Cost?

August 21st, 2009

All Estimating Software programs look at labor as a function of the quantity of individual material parts. The main difference here is that you don’t look at labor based on an individual material part. The Labor System Unit Cost approach is really based on a combination of ALL the material parts that make up any given system. So self-performing contractors then look at the magnitude of the hourly work involved for the complete labor system they are estimating. Often, they look at the complete system and apply a total quantity of time for their crew to perform the work for all the material parts. Then an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly crew cost is applied to the contractors’ complete labor system. Some folks then take that total labor dollar amount and divides it by the quantity unit measure of the system to arrive at the system labor unit cost/unit of measure. Therefore, Estimating Software programs should be able to perform such a task, but since the quantity of time is crucial in this method and really relative to a company’s experience, estimating programs do not have that historical labor data (subjective) readily available.

Entry Filed under: Business