I’ve been thinking about board feet lately. Board feet is used in our industry as the primary “how much” value of something. “How much did we produce today? How big is that job? It is also sometimes used as a measure of work. “What’s our capacity?” is a question that can be answered in board feet. Board foot really doesn’t tell me much, other than how big a pile of wood it is going to take to build the job. I’ve been thinking about a different way to create a ‘scorecard’ for a job. Something that would tell me at a glance some important details about the job so I could compare it to other jobs and develop norms over weeks and months. Here are some of the things I would like these numbers to tell me:
1. How complicated is the job?
2. How heavy was the material used?
We are going to look some numbers that might shed some light on how one job is different from another - quickly.
Are we going to spend a lot of time setting up, or building trusses? Let’s calculate the number of trusses per setup, by taking the total number of trusses and dividing by the number of “marks” (unique trusses.) I suggest leaving jacks and valleys out of this calculation.
Are these simple trusses, or chopped up monsters? Again, taking the jacks and valleys out, figure the average number of pieces per truss (total pieces for all trusses divided by total number of trusses.)
Are these trusses ‘light weights,’ or are the table guys going to have to do some heavy lifting? Take the total BF and divide by the total LF of boards to create a ‘Weight Score.’
We need to collect data (using MBA or another tabulation program) to see how our jobs score in each of these areas: Trusses per Setup, Pieces per Truss, Weight. Once we have 100 or 200 jobs to refer to, we can compare and begin to assign grades. Rather than using letter grades, I suggest using numbers. Once you have 100 or more data points, figure out what the range is for each metric. For example, you may have jobs that whose Trusses per Setup range from 25 to 2. You will likely see some trends. Try to find the natural breaks within the data. You will end up with a Score for Trusses per Setup that looks something like this:
Example: Scoring System for Jobs – Trusses per Setup
Score Range
1 Over 7
2 4.5 to 7
3 3.8 to 4.5
4 3.1 to 3.8
5 less than 3.1
You want a system that will put your ‘average’ for the factor in the ‘3’ category. Do the same with the other factors we have discussed: pieces per truss and weight. Now you have three measures and a simple scoring system to quickly tell you a lot about the job. You still can use board feet to tell you the size of the job. The scoring system can help you price jobs, estimate the labor needed and see which factor affects labor rates the most. Do you make more on ‘high score’ jobs, or ‘low score’ jobs? If your MH/BF varies a great deal from job to job, perhaps a scoring system like this can help you learn why.