CIVIL CONTRACTOR UNIT PRICE PRODUCTION TRACKING.
Civil contractors bidding unit price work, per LF of pipe, per CY of dirt, per SF of pavement, or per ton of asphalt, win and lose money on production rate against the bid unit. A bid that assumes 280 LF/day of pipe installation and runs at 215 LF/day burns 23% of the project margin on labor and equipment overrun. Most civil subs don't track production by bid unit while the job runs. They track total labor hours by project and total equipment hours by project, then find out at closeout how production ran. By then the variance is locked in, and unit level tracking would have surfaced it within days instead of weeks.
The reason this stays hidden is the cost report. Labor hours and equipment hours total up at the project level, so a crew running 215 LF/day against a 280 LF/day bid reads the same as a crew hitting its number. Nothing in the monthly close asks how many feet of pipe went in per crew hour. The job closes, the margin comes in light, and the estimator hears that the bid was tight. It wasn't the bid. It was the rate the crew ran at, and nobody measured it while there was still time to correct it.
WHAT IT MEANS.
Unit price production tracking is the measurement of units installed per crew hour against the production rate the bid assumed, by cost code, while the job is still running.
Civil work runs heavily on unit price contracts: per LF of pipe installed, per CY of earth moved, per SF of subgrade prep, per ton of asphalt placed, and per LF of curb and gutter poured. The bid specifies production rate assumptions for each unit, 320 LF/day of 8 inch sewer pipe, 1,200 CY/day of mass excavation, or 8,500 SF/day of subgrade prep. The financial outcome of the project depends on production matching what the bid assumed.
When production runs short of the bid, labor cost and equipment cost per unit run high. A bid that priced labor at $8.50/LF for sewer install, based on 280 LF/day at $19/hour crew cost, costs $11.05/LF in labor when the crew runs 215 LF/day. That's a $2.55/LF overrun, and on a 4,800 LF project it's $12,240 of margin compression on that one cost code alone.
Most civil subs don't see this while the work is happening. Cost reports show labor hours and equipment hours totaled at the project level, and production rate by bid unit isn't tracked separately. The variance becomes visible at closeout, by which point every unit has been installed at whatever rate the crew managed.
WHY THE VARIANCE STAYS HIDDEN.
Bid units aren't mirrored in the cost coding
The bid specifies LF of pipe by size and type. The cost coding tracks labor for underground work in aggregate, so the two never meet. Comparing actual against estimated is impossible when the units don't match, which is why the cost coding has to mirror the bid units before production tracking can work at all.
Daily production never gets reported
Crews finish a day's work without reporting units installed, and total project units roll up only at the end. Daily production rate, the one figure that surfaces variance early, never gets captured. The crew foreman has to report daily units against daily hours for the system to function.
Equipment hours aren't tied to units
Labor hours sometimes track to projects. Equipment hours typically don't track to specific phases at all. Cost per unit needs both labor and equipment cost allocated to the specific scope, so without equipment hour allocation the production rate analysis is incomplete.
The variance surfaces at closeout, then repeats
Project closeout calculates total units installed against total cost, so the variance becomes visible after the job is finished. The only fix left is updating the next bid, and the current project's margin compression is locked in. Worse, most subs that calculate variance at closeout never feed it back into the estimating tables, so next quarter's bids use the same production rate assumptions that produced last quarter's losses.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
A bid priced labor at $8.50/LF for sewer install, based on 280 LF/day at $19/hour crew cost. Run the same scope at 215 LF/day and the labor cost is $11.05/LF. That's a $2.55/LF overrun, and on a 4,800 LF project it's $12,240 of margin compression on one cost code.
A $6M civil sub running average production tracking typically sees 12 to 18% variance against bid production rates across the project portfolio, which compresses gross margin by 4 to 8 percentage points. The same business running unit level tracking with weekly variance analysis typically holds variance to 5 to 8%, recovering 2 to 4 points of gross margin. On $6M revenue at 22% bid gross margin, a 4 point recovery is $240K per year. The cost is operational discipline and the cost coding alignment work up front. No price increases, no new customers, and no changed scope.
WHAT GOES IN PLACE.
Each unit priced line in the bid gets its own cost code. Labor and equipment hours get allocated to the specific cost code for the specific bid unit, so the rate the crew ran and the rate the bid assumed can be compared without translation. That alignment work happens once, up front, and everything downstream depends on it.
Each foreman reports units installed and hours worked every day, by cost code. It takes five minutes before the crew leaves the site and it captures the numbers while they're fresh. Weekly totals alone can't tell you which day went sideways, which is why the daily entry is the piece that can't be skipped.
Production rate, units divided by hours, gets calculated weekly by cost code and compared to the bid production rate. Variance surfaces within 7 days of the work being performed. That's early enough to do something about it while the remaining units are still going in.
Variance caught in week two supports sequencing changes, crew adjustments, scope clarification, or equipment additions. Some of the overrun comes back if the cause is operational. If the cause is the bid assumption instead, the variance at least gets documented for the change order conversation.
Final production rates by cost code feed back into the estimating tables, so next quarter's bids reflect this quarter's reality. Estimating accuracy compounds across years instead of drifting farther from the field. This is the step most subs skip, and it's the cheapest one on the list.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SURPRISES.
Three tiers, priced by your trailing twelve month revenue. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No hourly billing, no payroll, and no add-ons.
| Last 12 months revenue | Monthly fee |
|---|---|
| Up to $1M | $1,900 to $2,900 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 to $3,900 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 to $5,700 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 to $7,100 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 to $8,500 |
| $12.5M to $15.5M | $7,400 to $11,000 |
| $15.5M to $18.5M | $9,400 to $13,500 |
| $18.5M+ | Quoted individually |
Range reflects the three tiers below. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No payroll. No hidden line items.
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