What is earned vs burned hours, and why does it matter?

The two numbers

Earned: you installed 400 square metres of blockwork, your norm is 0.5 hours per square metre, so you earned 200 hours. Burned: the timecards say the crew spent 260 hours doing it.

Earned over burned is 0.77. The crew is taking about 30% longer than the norm — and that is knowable this week, from data the project already has.

Why the timing is the whole point

The cost report will eventually tell you the same thing. But the cost report is downstream of invoices, and invoices arrive thirty to sixty days after the money was committed. By the time it reports the overrun, the overrun has finished happening.

Earned-over-burned uses quantities and timecards, both of which exist inside the week. It is the earliest honest signal of a productivity problem available on a construction project — and it is available to any project that measures installed quantities and allocates its hours.

And the trap: inflated burn cuts both ways

Burned hours come from the timecards, which means unallocated or overstated hours inflate the denominator. Your crews then look less productive than they actually were.

That is not merely embarrassing. It understates any disruption claim you later make — because you cannot prove the productivity you actually achieved — and it corrupts the norms you will price your next bid from, in the direction that loses you work. Time theft is usually discussed as a payroll problem. Its more expensive consequence is here.

Terms

• Earned Hours