Nilsson Associates
07-19-2007, 06:02 AM
Lawn & Landscape Job Time Labor Hours Information
by Phil Nilsson, Green Industry Consultant
www.nilssonbooks.com
No matter how difficult it may be to prepare job bid contracts, you should know that it's impossible, absolutely impossible to bid on a contract without knowing time. I don't mean knowing time by looking at your pocket watch, I mean time for every part of the work. This is commonly referred to as knowing the scope of the work. How long does it take to mow grass, dig a hole, plant a tree, prune a shrub, edge a sidewalk, travel to and from the worksite, get the equipment and vehicles ready to roll each morning? And when you take a look at the hundreds of tasks being performed, that alone clues you in to the fact that there are hundreds of times you can be wrong. That's why I said it's impossible to develop a contract bid without knowing time and the scope of the work.
Because of the tedious nature of knowing time, lots of folks just guess at it, and then use those guesses to prepare a job bid. It's not necessary to do that, and it's what I consider a form of "financial suicide". Why? Several reasons. The first is that if you're going to take the time and trouble to bid a job, the outcome should be a price that is not higher or lower than it has to be to produce an adequate profit. Here, we abandon the hit or miss approach by using intelligent work times ... or call them time standards assigned to labor hours and labor tasks. Standards are the average time it takes to perform a task, and to complete the work. The best standards of course are those that are proven because these give you a high level of confidence in the outcomes for pricing and production purposes. Proven time standards come with their own set of high confidence factors that you feel comfortable in using.
If you're going to do it often ... time it.
The most common standards to want if you do maintenance is the time it takes to mow lawns. That's because about 50% of the total time spent annually on an average customer account will be for mowing. If you don't know mowing times, that one thing will distort your bid price, your production time planning, and equipment allocations unless you "guess lucky". But why guess? All you need to do is measure for the scope of the work, adjust for worksite variables, assign a level of difficulty factor and then time ... the time ... it takes to mow using various sized equipment. Apply that information? No problem. First, larger areas are best mowed using high production equipment, with lessor productivity as you descend down, down to smaller and smaller lawn areas. When you have the square footage, you have the scope of the work. Using mowing tables depending on machine, then indicates the average mowing time. That's pretty straight forward. You visit the site and divide it into the approriate mowing category, and maybe end up with two or three different sized mowers needed for the job. On almost any site, you're likely to need several sized mowers if you are to produce the job using the fastest and best production method.
For example a site may require a rider to mow 50,000 square feet, a walk behind mower to mow 30,000 square feet, and a trim mower to take care of the smaller, tighter areas of 5,000 square feet. When you measure the site, you simply separate the areas measured into the right mower size category, rather than coming away only knowing that you have a total of 85,000 square to mow. Having that information and using it with a production table tells you how long each sized mower will be needed for the job. From that info you can assign the work, establish time goals, reserve a time block for equipment, decide on the best number of workers to do the mowing, and of course come up with a cost and price for the mowing. This same approach to job measurement can be used for other items found within the work specifications ... not just mowing. All you need is the job criteria from which to measure or putting it differently, when you know quantity, you understand the scope of the work.
How much work is there?
You'll never really know until you count it all. That's the same as saying that if you want to paint a house, to know labor time and the gallons of paint needed, you need to measure the walls, trim,and other surface areas to form the criteria and basis for your estimate. From there you arrive at material costs, labor time, price and have an idea of the tooling needed for the job. Material costs are known, labor time is known, price is known, so the only other cost is the overhead dollars to cover payroll taxes, insurance, equipment depreciation, rent, telephone, and other expenses that you can break down to an hourly basis for convenience sake when bidding jobs. That information can come from your tax return or financial statement which serves as your historical cost record. Using those figures takes much of the guesswork out of the bid process and instills a greator degree of bidding confidence as you get to know and use the numbers year after year. If somebody asks you what it costs to put a man in the field for an hour, you'll know the answer. You'll also know at what rate per hour you must charge to use for your pricing strategy.
In addition to knowing cost and price, when you know job time requirements, while a job is underway, you'll have figures to use to not only check your cost budget for the work, but actual on-site experienced job times to look at and compare. Your job estimate may indicate that the total job was supposed to be completed in let's say 100 man hours, but it took 120 or it took 90. When that happens ... a variation between estimated time and actual time to complete, then you look for the reasons for the variations. You may find that your standard times need to be changed up or down to imporve their accuracy to use on all future bids.
You sell time
The business of most service businesses is that they sell time. So time should be clearly understood and tracked as a vital part of labor, production and profit management. Of course you'll have to make certain that when you assign time to a job task that you use the best production method by selecting the most efficient equipment available.
Job
Bidding
Resources:
Job Estimating Package (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_estimating_package.htm)
FREE Job Pricing Guidelines (http://nilssonbooks.com/free_job_guidelines.htm)
Labor Time Data Handbook (http://www.hispaniclawnforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1757)
Nilsson's Job Estimating System (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_estimating_package.htm) has everything you need to evaluate job site specifications & work required, figure costs, how to price ~ lawns, grounds maintenance, landscape installs. You'll get step - by - step instructions, bid proposal outlines & customer contracts, labor hours job times. You'll get job price guides to compare your prices with the going rates, overhead costs, materials, profit ratios. You'll set realistic prices, and job labor hours goals based on field tested, proven, time studied labor hours for every job you bid. You'll know how to evaluate every job for total work hours required, the price to charge for the job, the profit you'll make, best crew size, job costs. You'll also get add-on service check lists to help you maximize sales by upselling customers on additional property improvements.
Labor Time Data Handbook
Nilsson Associates Toll Free 866-280-2252
www.nilssonbooks.com (http://nilssonbooks.com/)
For:
Landscaping Contractors
Lawn Care Service Providers
Parks & Recreation Managers
Snow Removal & Plowing
Labor Time Data Handbook - Contains over 500 field tested, time-studied labor hours data for landscaping and grounds maintenance job estimating and calculating labor time man hours for facility managers, parks and recreation departments, campus grounds, schools and university grounds. Bid with confidence, save time preparing bids, easily determine best crew size, make money on every job you get, never under or overprice a bid again, set realistic labor goals for employees. Includes labor hours for just about every job performed in landscaping and grounds maintenance by contractors and facility managers, parks, campus grounds functions and sports complex maintenance. For Green Industry Job Bidding, Pricing, Profits, Estimating Irrigation and Hardscape Jobs and for use in non-profit situations where budgeting labor hours, scheduling the work and determining total employee production man hours is desired.
These methods of collecting information was the basis for creating my Labor Time Data Handbook of Standard Work Times of man hours needed to perform the work. Included in my time study was all sorts of grounds maintenance and landscaping installation tasks and work that is normally done by landscaping and lawn care service companies. I timed things like Mowing, edging, trimming, pruning, snow plowing, ice control, tree planting, mulch, aeration, slit seeding, shrub beds, hardscapes, blowing leaves, lawn chemical applications, spring and fall cleanups, seed, installing sod, water gardening, flowers, and over 500 common job tasks to numerous to mention. I timed the different work tasks using many different types and sizes of power equipment was used during the timing trials for edger, trimmers, riding mower, walkbehind, weed eater, tractor, ztr, chainsaws, loaders, trucks, trailers, sprayers, hydroseeders, spreaders and the usual equipment of running a green industry company.
Labor Time Data Table of Contents:
Introduction
How To Bid Contracts
Knowing The Scope of the Work
A Few Words About Profits
Units of Work
Service Frequency
Labor Times:
Aerification
Back Pack Spraying
Blowing
Cleanups
Dethatching
Edging
Grading
Granular Applications
Hydroseeding
Installing Flowers
Installing Pavers
Line Marking
Liquid Applications
Loading
Mowing
Mulching
Pavement Sweeping
Planting Shrubs & Trees
Pruning
Raking
Sanding & Salting
Seeding
Snow Blowing
Snow Plowing
Sodding
Staking & Guying
Stump Grinding
Trimming
Watering
Weeding
Reference Section:
Annual Sales Statistics
Calculating Equipment Costs
Employee Productivity
Fertilizer Recommendations
Mowing Height Recommendations
Grounds Maintenance Statistics
Labor Management
Landscape Construction Estimating
Non-Productive Time Cost Worksheet
Tables & Measures
MIscellaneous Formulas
Financial Formulas
How to order
Labor Time Data Handbook
Written by Nilsson Associates
Book # A-7, Price $69.50
To order online Click Here: (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#)
To order by phone Toll Free 1-866-280-2252
Other resources ...
Sales Boosters (http://nilssonbooks.com/sales_booster_package.htm)
Job Estimating Package (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_estimating_package.htm)
FREE Job Pricing Guidelines (http://nilssonbooks.com/free_job_guidelines.htm)
New Business Startup Package (http://nilssonbooks.com/just_getting_started.htm)
Complete Operations Management System (http://nilssonbooks.com/coms_package.htm)
Nilsson's Job Estimating System (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_estimating_package.htm) has everything you need to evaluate job site specifications & work required, figure costs, how to price ~ lawns, grounds maintenance, landscape installs. You'll get step - by - step instructions, bid proposal outlines & customer contracts, labor hours job times. You'll get job price guides to compare your prices with the going rates, overhead costs, materials, profit ratios. You'll set realistic prices, and job labor hours goals based on field tested, proven, time studied labor hours for every job you bid. You'll know how to evaluate every job for total work hours required, the price to charge for the job, the profit you'll make, best crew size, job costs. You'll also get add-on service check lists to help you maximize sales by upselling customers on additional property improvements.
Click here for: Labor Time Data Handbook (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#)
http://nilssonbooks.com/_borders/Phil-Nilsson-Picture.jpg
Phil Nilsson
"Best Selling Author"
Nilsson Associates
Green Industry Consultants
374 Hart Street
Southington, CT 06489
Toll Free 866-280-2252
www.nilssonbooks.com (http://nilssonbooks.com/) email nilsson.assoc@snet.net
by Phil Nilsson, Green Industry Consultant
www.nilssonbooks.com
No matter how difficult it may be to prepare job bid contracts, you should know that it's impossible, absolutely impossible to bid on a contract without knowing time. I don't mean knowing time by looking at your pocket watch, I mean time for every part of the work. This is commonly referred to as knowing the scope of the work. How long does it take to mow grass, dig a hole, plant a tree, prune a shrub, edge a sidewalk, travel to and from the worksite, get the equipment and vehicles ready to roll each morning? And when you take a look at the hundreds of tasks being performed, that alone clues you in to the fact that there are hundreds of times you can be wrong. That's why I said it's impossible to develop a contract bid without knowing time and the scope of the work.
Because of the tedious nature of knowing time, lots of folks just guess at it, and then use those guesses to prepare a job bid. It's not necessary to do that, and it's what I consider a form of "financial suicide". Why? Several reasons. The first is that if you're going to take the time and trouble to bid a job, the outcome should be a price that is not higher or lower than it has to be to produce an adequate profit. Here, we abandon the hit or miss approach by using intelligent work times ... or call them time standards assigned to labor hours and labor tasks. Standards are the average time it takes to perform a task, and to complete the work. The best standards of course are those that are proven because these give you a high level of confidence in the outcomes for pricing and production purposes. Proven time standards come with their own set of high confidence factors that you feel comfortable in using.
If you're going to do it often ... time it.
The most common standards to want if you do maintenance is the time it takes to mow lawns. That's because about 50% of the total time spent annually on an average customer account will be for mowing. If you don't know mowing times, that one thing will distort your bid price, your production time planning, and equipment allocations unless you "guess lucky". But why guess? All you need to do is measure for the scope of the work, adjust for worksite variables, assign a level of difficulty factor and then time ... the time ... it takes to mow using various sized equipment. Apply that information? No problem. First, larger areas are best mowed using high production equipment, with lessor productivity as you descend down, down to smaller and smaller lawn areas. When you have the square footage, you have the scope of the work. Using mowing tables depending on machine, then indicates the average mowing time. That's pretty straight forward. You visit the site and divide it into the approriate mowing category, and maybe end up with two or three different sized mowers needed for the job. On almost any site, you're likely to need several sized mowers if you are to produce the job using the fastest and best production method.
For example a site may require a rider to mow 50,000 square feet, a walk behind mower to mow 30,000 square feet, and a trim mower to take care of the smaller, tighter areas of 5,000 square feet. When you measure the site, you simply separate the areas measured into the right mower size category, rather than coming away only knowing that you have a total of 85,000 square to mow. Having that information and using it with a production table tells you how long each sized mower will be needed for the job. From that info you can assign the work, establish time goals, reserve a time block for equipment, decide on the best number of workers to do the mowing, and of course come up with a cost and price for the mowing. This same approach to job measurement can be used for other items found within the work specifications ... not just mowing. All you need is the job criteria from which to measure or putting it differently, when you know quantity, you understand the scope of the work.
How much work is there?
You'll never really know until you count it all. That's the same as saying that if you want to paint a house, to know labor time and the gallons of paint needed, you need to measure the walls, trim,and other surface areas to form the criteria and basis for your estimate. From there you arrive at material costs, labor time, price and have an idea of the tooling needed for the job. Material costs are known, labor time is known, price is known, so the only other cost is the overhead dollars to cover payroll taxes, insurance, equipment depreciation, rent, telephone, and other expenses that you can break down to an hourly basis for convenience sake when bidding jobs. That information can come from your tax return or financial statement which serves as your historical cost record. Using those figures takes much of the guesswork out of the bid process and instills a greator degree of bidding confidence as you get to know and use the numbers year after year. If somebody asks you what it costs to put a man in the field for an hour, you'll know the answer. You'll also know at what rate per hour you must charge to use for your pricing strategy.
In addition to knowing cost and price, when you know job time requirements, while a job is underway, you'll have figures to use to not only check your cost budget for the work, but actual on-site experienced job times to look at and compare. Your job estimate may indicate that the total job was supposed to be completed in let's say 100 man hours, but it took 120 or it took 90. When that happens ... a variation between estimated time and actual time to complete, then you look for the reasons for the variations. You may find that your standard times need to be changed up or down to imporve their accuracy to use on all future bids.
You sell time
The business of most service businesses is that they sell time. So time should be clearly understood and tracked as a vital part of labor, production and profit management. Of course you'll have to make certain that when you assign time to a job task that you use the best production method by selecting the most efficient equipment available.
Job
Bidding
Resources:
Job Estimating Package (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_estimating_package.htm)
FREE Job Pricing Guidelines (http://nilssonbooks.com/free_job_guidelines.htm)
Labor Time Data Handbook (http://www.hispaniclawnforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1757)
Nilsson's Job Estimating System (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_estimating_package.htm) has everything you need to evaluate job site specifications & work required, figure costs, how to price ~ lawns, grounds maintenance, landscape installs. You'll get step - by - step instructions, bid proposal outlines & customer contracts, labor hours job times. You'll get job price guides to compare your prices with the going rates, overhead costs, materials, profit ratios. You'll set realistic prices, and job labor hours goals based on field tested, proven, time studied labor hours for every job you bid. You'll know how to evaluate every job for total work hours required, the price to charge for the job, the profit you'll make, best crew size, job costs. You'll also get add-on service check lists to help you maximize sales by upselling customers on additional property improvements.
Labor Time Data Handbook
Nilsson Associates Toll Free 866-280-2252
www.nilssonbooks.com (http://nilssonbooks.com/)
For:
Landscaping Contractors
Lawn Care Service Providers
Parks & Recreation Managers
Snow Removal & Plowing
Labor Time Data Handbook - Contains over 500 field tested, time-studied labor hours data for landscaping and grounds maintenance job estimating and calculating labor time man hours for facility managers, parks and recreation departments, campus grounds, schools and university grounds. Bid with confidence, save time preparing bids, easily determine best crew size, make money on every job you get, never under or overprice a bid again, set realistic labor goals for employees. Includes labor hours for just about every job performed in landscaping and grounds maintenance by contractors and facility managers, parks, campus grounds functions and sports complex maintenance. For Green Industry Job Bidding, Pricing, Profits, Estimating Irrigation and Hardscape Jobs and for use in non-profit situations where budgeting labor hours, scheduling the work and determining total employee production man hours is desired.
These methods of collecting information was the basis for creating my Labor Time Data Handbook of Standard Work Times of man hours needed to perform the work. Included in my time study was all sorts of grounds maintenance and landscaping installation tasks and work that is normally done by landscaping and lawn care service companies. I timed things like Mowing, edging, trimming, pruning, snow plowing, ice control, tree planting, mulch, aeration, slit seeding, shrub beds, hardscapes, blowing leaves, lawn chemical applications, spring and fall cleanups, seed, installing sod, water gardening, flowers, and over 500 common job tasks to numerous to mention. I timed the different work tasks using many different types and sizes of power equipment was used during the timing trials for edger, trimmers, riding mower, walkbehind, weed eater, tractor, ztr, chainsaws, loaders, trucks, trailers, sprayers, hydroseeders, spreaders and the usual equipment of running a green industry company.
Labor Time Data Table of Contents:
Introduction
How To Bid Contracts
Knowing The Scope of the Work
A Few Words About Profits
Units of Work
Service Frequency
Labor Times:
Aerification
Back Pack Spraying
Blowing
Cleanups
Dethatching
Edging
Grading
Granular Applications
Hydroseeding
Installing Flowers
Installing Pavers
Line Marking
Liquid Applications
Loading
Mowing
Mulching
Pavement Sweeping
Planting Shrubs & Trees
Pruning
Raking
Sanding & Salting
Seeding
Snow Blowing
Snow Plowing
Sodding
Staking & Guying
Stump Grinding
Trimming
Watering
Weeding
Reference Section:
Annual Sales Statistics
Calculating Equipment Costs
Employee Productivity
Fertilizer Recommendations
Mowing Height Recommendations
Grounds Maintenance Statistics
Labor Management
Landscape Construction Estimating
Non-Productive Time Cost Worksheet
Tables & Measures
MIscellaneous Formulas
Financial Formulas
How to order
Labor Time Data Handbook
Written by Nilsson Associates
Book # A-7, Price $69.50
To order online Click Here: (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#)
To order by phone Toll Free 1-866-280-2252
Other resources ...
Sales Boosters (http://nilssonbooks.com/sales_booster_package.htm)
Job Estimating Package (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_estimating_package.htm)
FREE Job Pricing Guidelines (http://nilssonbooks.com/free_job_guidelines.htm)
New Business Startup Package (http://nilssonbooks.com/just_getting_started.htm)
Complete Operations Management System (http://nilssonbooks.com/coms_package.htm)
Nilsson's Job Estimating System (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_estimating_package.htm) has everything you need to evaluate job site specifications & work required, figure costs, how to price ~ lawns, grounds maintenance, landscape installs. You'll get step - by - step instructions, bid proposal outlines & customer contracts, labor hours job times. You'll get job price guides to compare your prices with the going rates, overhead costs, materials, profit ratios. You'll set realistic prices, and job labor hours goals based on field tested, proven, time studied labor hours for every job you bid. You'll know how to evaluate every job for total work hours required, the price to charge for the job, the profit you'll make, best crew size, job costs. You'll also get add-on service check lists to help you maximize sales by upselling customers on additional property improvements.
Click here for: Labor Time Data Handbook (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#)
http://nilssonbooks.com/_borders/Phil-Nilsson-Picture.jpg
Phil Nilsson
"Best Selling Author"
Nilsson Associates
Green Industry Consultants
374 Hart Street
Southington, CT 06489
Toll Free 866-280-2252
www.nilssonbooks.com (http://nilssonbooks.com/) email nilsson.assoc@snet.net