Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
LABOR COSTS
Generally, data on wage rates includes shift differentials and Scheduled overtime over an extended period can result in
overtime premiums. If not, these factors must be added to the substantial decreases in worker productivity resulting in a
extent applicable. major cost penalty for productivity losses in addition to the
higher direct costs of premium pay at 1.5, 2, or even 3 times
Further, when estimating around-the-clock, 168-hr/wk oper- normal hourly rates.
ations, allowance must be made for the fact that a week
includes 4.2 standard 40-hr weeks. Even with four work Scheduled overtime involves a planned, continuing schedule
crews on “swing shift,” one crew must work 8 hr/week of for extended working hours for individual workers or even
overtime to keep the plant in steady operation. Depending entire crews. It is not occasional overtime caused on an irreg-
upon local custom, laws, and union contracts, this overtime ular basis by absenteeism, equipment malfunctions, etc.
is generally payable at 1.5 to 3 times the normal hourly rate.
Unfortunately, scheduled overtime rarely saves money or
An alternate method of calculating labor requirements, if suf- accelerates production. Two articles which appeared in the
ficient data are not available to establish a staffing table, is to AACE Bulletin in 1973 [2, 5] amply illustrated this point.
consider a correlation of labor in workhours per ton of prod- These articles, prepared by representatives of the
uct per processing step. This relationship, which was devel- Construction Users Anti-Inflation Roundtable (now the
oped by Wessell [6], relates labor requirements to plant Business Roundtable), clearly demonstrated that scheduled
capacity by the following equation: overtime rarely, if ever, is beneficial, and that overtime
should be avoided in favor of additional employees working
normal shifts or partial shifts.
10.8