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How To Calculate Man-Hours

To calculate man-hours, you determine the number of workers and hours each will work, then multiply those numbers to get the total man-hours for a given period. You can also estimate how long a project will take based on its required man-hours and workforce size. Doubling workers may not halve time if resources are limited. Calculating man-hours allows efficient management of work teams.

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2K views

How To Calculate Man-Hours

To calculate man-hours, you determine the number of workers and hours each will work, then multiply those numbers to get the total man-hours for a given period. You can also estimate how long a project will take based on its required man-hours and workforce size. Doubling workers may not halve time if resources are limited. Calculating man-hours allows efficient management of work teams.

Uploaded by

adasawqqq111
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How to Calculate Man-hours

Calculate Man-hours

A man-hour is the amount of work done by one worker in one hour. Ten people working
for eight hours would do 80 man-hours of work, for example. If you know, from
experience or prediction, how many man hours it takes to complete a certain project, you
can estimate how productivity will be affected by adding or removing workers. This does
not always work perfectly; doubling the amount of workers on a construction site might
not halve the building time because you only have one working crane, for example. Still,
man-hours are an important concept in managing teams of workers efficiently.

Instructions:

Calculating man-hours
1. Determine how many people are working on the project. For our example, we will
say that we have 20 workers.
2. Calculate how many hours each person works, not counting break time, holidays or
vacations. Multiply the number of hours per day by the number of days worked. For
our example, we will assume that all our employees work 8 hours a day, minus a half
hour break time, five days a week. This means that each employee contributes 37.5
man-hours per week.
3. Multiply how much each person works by the total number of workers. In our
example, 20 people working 37.5 hours a week equals 750 man-hours in one week.
Calculating how long it will take to complete a
project
4. Determine how many man-hours it takes to finish the project. This will either be
known from experience or will have to be estimated, and is specific to each project.
As an example, let's say our 20 employees will be planting corn by hand. We want to
plant 30 acres of corn by hand, and we expect this to require 800 man-hours.
5. Divide the number of man-hours required by the number of workers. 800 man-
hours divided by 20 workers is 40 hours. Since our workers put in a little under 40
hours each week due to breaks, they will be able to finish planting in just over five
days.

6. Perform the same calculation with a different number of workers to see the effect of
hiring extra help or taking people off the project. If we cut our workforce by five
people, for example, it would take 53.3 hours, or just over seven days (800/15=53.3).

7. Divide the number of man-hours needed to complete the project by the amount of
time you want it to take. This calculation will tell you how many people must be put
on the job to finish it within a certain deadline.

Let's say our corn needs to be planted within three days, because we want it to be finished
by the time its forecast to rain. Since one worker does 7.5 hours of work a day, he or she
would do 22.5 hours of work in 3 days. Divide 800 by 22.5 to get 35.6. We would need 36
workers (or 35 full-time workers and 1 part time worker) to finish the job in time.

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