Big Job, How To Figure Out My Man Hours

superioreagle

We are currently interested in bidding a large voice and data cabling job. Approximately 1500-2000 drops. Most of the drops call for a 2 data. Its new contruction. We never bid on this big of job and are having a hard time figuring out the man hours. Any Help!!!

mahlere

break it down, then add it up...like eating an elephant, one bite at a time

mickeyco

stuff

__________________
Some people climb mountains. I take out the trash. But we both do it for the same reason.

Celtic

Like mahlere said...break it down to manageable pieces:

Locate the panel locations....
locate the termination locations...
Note the ceiling height(not FINISHED ceiling...the deck or previous floor's bottom is the ceiling)


Measure out each run on paper(don't forget the max ceiling height x2 )....figure your wire(quantity)....transpose to man hours.
While figuring your runs, figure in "trunks" - big wads of cable is more efficient to run/support than a million single lines run all over the place....get that hanger count....calculate manhours.

Figure your terminations...what type/how many(quantity)..transpose to man hours.

Boxes...how many/style...
Patch panels...jumpers ..etc
and so on.

Look at it as 1500-2000 single jobs if you have to....when you start to pencil in your home runs, you will see the complete job and wonder why you got nervous.



If you cannot easily transpose a quantity of wire, panels, terminations, hangers, etc to a man hour ...you might need some sort of labor unit book.

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mahlere

means has units for j-hooks and data wiring...i think

Celtic

As does the NECA book.

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superioreagle

I got a estimating book. It says figure .008 hours per linear foot of cable and and .25 of a hour per cable pulled to the same location. I figured we pull around 8 cables at a time for the majority. So if the footage was 100' and i pulled 8 cables if fugures it would take me 2.8 man hours. Does this seam right! It does to me.

mdshunk

Sounds about right to me, but only you know for sure. Maybe you're fat, maybe you're lazy, maybe you smoke way too much, or maybe you run around like a monkey that just drank a 2-liter of Mountain Dew? Hard to say, for sure. Do each tiny labor task in your mind's eye, and add them up, and compare them to the book. That's what I usually do to "double check" any book price or even my own historical data.

Double-A

Oh great, now I have this vision of an bearded monkey in a Minnie Pearl hat spazzing out in slow motion while holding a Mountain Dew.

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"My clients’ wishes are the center of my attention." -- David Guido, a contractor in Woodstock, N.Y.
New York Times, July 20, 2006

Wirebender

Maybe you need to quit spying on me, MD.