Practical project management lessons from environmental, demolition, remediation, and industrial work. For project engineers, developing PMs, and field professionals. Delivered every Friday.
Friday Field Notes #20: Small Costs Become Big Costs
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Good morning team, This week’s topic: small tools and consumables. 1. From the Field Nobody calls an emergency meeting because the project bought another box of cutting wheels. Small purchases rarely look concerning one at a time. Over several months, though, the job may go through far more blades, filters, hoses, batteries, PPE, and other consumables than the estimate allowed. Some small tools will also disappear into gang boxes, service trucks, and whatever mysterious place tape measures go when they leave this world. The answer isn’t to slow the crew down over every purchase. The project team should still know what’s being used, where it’s going, and whether the rate makes sense for the work being completed. 2. Leadership Perspective Crews need the tools and supplies required to do the work safely and efficiently. Reasonable tracking helps the PM spot unusual usage without turning the purchasing process into an interrogation over a box of drill bits. 3. Field Observation Small-cost problems usually become visible after several invoices arrive together. By then, the project has already paid for the usage and has fewer options to correct it. A simple weekly summary by category can make the pattern easier to see. If cutting supplies are running high, compare that cost with the type and quantity of material being processed. Unexpected PPE usage might point to poor inventory control or supplies being charged to the wrong job. Even a modest daily overage adds up. An extra $150 per day over a six-day workweek becomes $18,000 across twenty weeks. That’s a respectable amount of money for costs nobody thought were worth discussing individually. 4. Spreadsheet Tip This week’s formula totals purchases by category:
In this example:
If F2 says “Cutting Supplies,” the formula totals every purchase assigned to that category. The same setup can be used for PPE, small tools, equipment parts, or other recurring costs. 5. Question for the Week Which small project expense would surprise you if you added up the last three months? Have a great weekend, Dan |
Friday Field Notes
Practical project management lessons from environmental, demolition, remediation, and industrial work. For project engineers, developing PMs, and field professionals. Delivered every Friday.
Good morning team, This week’s topic: equipment cost exposure. 1. From the Field Equipment costs don’t wait for someone to notice them. A rented excavator can be fueled, inspected, parked in exactly the right spot, and accomplish absolutely nothing while the rental clock keeps running. Sometimes the delay can’t be avoided. An approval may still be pending, the work area might not be ready, or the sequence may have changed. The trouble starts when “we’ll probably need it later” becomes the...
Good morning team, This week’s topic: labor hours. 1. From the Field Knowing that a project used 500 labor hours does not tell you much by itself. You need to know what those hours accomplished. That is where labor tracking becomes more useful. If 500 hours produced 1,000 units one week and the same 500 hours produced 650 the next, something changed. The reason could be completely legitimate, but the project team should understand it. I’ve found that labor discussions become much more useful...
Good morning team, This week’s topic: production rates. 1. From the Field Production gives the project team an early way to compare what was expected against what is actually happening. If the estimate assumed twenty truckloads per day and the project is consistently completing twelve, that difference deserves attention even before the cost report shows a problem. The same applies to demolition quantities, excavation, waste loading, concrete removal, equipment production, or almost any...