I am wondering if I can get some advice on measuring productivity in my department. I work for a company that manufacters guardrails for highways and roadways. We are going to use this information to more accurately price our estimates and schedule drawing time.
The first option was to measure and set goals based upon the number of pages in a set of drawings and the number of pages sent out each month. My problem with this is how are we going to know how many pages are in a set at the estimating stage? How can estimators price properly if they don't know the number of pages?
The second option was to measure by linear feet of guardrail. The problem with this is the difficulty level could be backwards. We have standard rail lengths. Our goal is to put as many standard rails pieces as possible and put custom rails on the ends. But that doesn't always happen. So we could have 10,000 linear feet of rail that uses 1000 of the same panels. Then the next job we could have 100 linear feet of a highly customized rail with slopes & radiuses that takes forever to draw. So I don't know if this is the most accurate measurement to use either.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to a good way to track it?