Man Hours or Machine Hours

Hi all, who runs man hours for the overhead rates and productivity and who uses machine hours? We run man hours a cross both machine shops and assembly shops. But 1 man can generally run more than one cnc machine (albeit not to 100%efficiency). We have a target of one man to run 1.5 machines, but not sure where that has come from. And how to book their time as to make sure we recover all available hours but done publish variances from planned time?

I would think that depends on program time and reload time.
Sitting on your duff for 5 minutes for every part is not very productive.
and running like a crazy person is also not very good.

In our shop most man hours are just counted as overhead. Even programming is just lumped into overhead unless it's more than ~10% of the total package value. Each spindle a has a rough target for hourly rate that I quote jobs at.

We run a lot of lights out, and I have no intention of giving that away for free!

Seriously though, it's not like the margins are huge - if we ran lights out for free, this place would go bankrupt in a hurry.

What decision are you making based on the numbers you collect?

I use both, and I use them for different reasons. I usually quote jobs with machine hours, but production efficiencies are done with man hours. I schedule work flow using both depending on the department.

I think you will find there is no "one right answer", it depends on what your end goal is.

You guys don't charge for both?? I don't charge machine time for setup time just man hour time, although I have considered whether I should be charging for both. But once the spindle is running both are costing me money so I am charging for both.

Now my cycle times are typically 2-4 hours per part and I often put more than 1 part on the machines. As well there is often more work in modeling, prepping stock, finishing and assembly than in cutting time.

But in a case where one person is able to run multiple machines or be able to do other value added work versus only one the costs are much different. I have been wondering for a while whether I should be quoting labour rates at a higher rate than machine time. I feel that I make more money on jobs where I have more machine time and less modeling etc.

I have some jobs/customers I charge from the second I touch the doorknob to open the shop in the morning until I leave in the afternoon. I am many times able to run 2-4 machines, sometimes for the same customer but more often most are our products and one "job shop" type job which throws another wrench in trying to figure out how we are doing, shop rate wise. When things are normal we simply judge by activity in the savings account but for the last 3 years we have been spending money like a whole herd of drunk rednecks between moving and making changes to the new place, widening roads, expanding buildings buying snow removal machines, rebuilding fences, and on and on so that doesn't work any more either, perhaps we are back to a new normal in the spring and can start looking for a new system, we will be watching this for tips.

There are other jobs I don't charge for at all, I have a weakness for old folks that are upwardly mobile and working on their projects and I don't charge them to fix their tools or make components for their projects. I have made a lot of grave makers and don't charge for them at all but similar bronze, copper, brass work we do for parks and things I charge for the material.

I frequently use an inflated number for spindle time as an estimate, as it is frequently difficult to track what I am doing from moment to moment

Needless to say with the Brother that number is going way, way up....

its simple, charge the work being done.

first part setup charge, cad cam charge. then cost per part. break it down in the quote, might get you more work as a customer might want more parts per run to maximize there costs if setup and cad cost $$$$$$$$$

Add up all the fixed coats. figure the material and tooling costs add how much you want to make..and divide that by the number of hours you want to run the shop.

Oh wait, and these guys want to make over $8.00 per so so how are we gonna figure that into the budget?

michiganbuck said:

Add up all the fixed coats. figure the material and tooling costs add how much you want to make..and divide that by the number of hours you want to run the shop.

Click to expand...

Are these man hours or machine hours that one uses.