Job margin is mostly a labor story. A quote assumes each operation takes its standard hours; the floor either hits that or it doesn't. This dashboard rolls every routing operation up by work center and operation type, compares estimated to actual hours, and turns the gap into the labor dollars it costs you - so you can see which work centers are eating margin before it shows up in the job-margin report.
What this dashboard answers
It answers two questions an operations manager can rarely separate: are we estimating the hours wrong, or running them slow? The scorecard shows estimated versus actual hours, Hours Efficiency % (standard hours earned per hour clocked), and Labor Cost Variance $ - the extra labor dollars spent above estimate. A clustered bar puts estimated next to actual hours by work center, and efficiency is broken out by operation type so a slow lathe operation doesn't hide behind a fast saw cell.
The metrics that matter
Hours Efficiency % is the core productivity read: under 100% means the floor is slower than the standards your quotes are built on. Rework Hours - actual hours clocked on operations flagged as rework - is the silent killer, because every rework hour is paid twice and quoted once. The second page splits actual hours into run, setup, and rework by work center, and a Work-Center-by-Operation-Type matrix colored by cost variance shows exactly where standards and reality diverge.
Why this data is trapped
The estimated hours come from the routing in your ERP; the actual hours come from shop-floor data collection - operators clocking on and off operations in JobBOSS (E2 Shoptech), Global Shop Solutions, ProShop ERP, or ECI M1 / Epicor. Both numbers exist, but the ERP shows them per job and per transaction, not aggregated into a per-work-center variance you can act on. Reconciling them across hundreds of operations is the Excel job most shops never finish.
How to read it
A work center with high actual hours and a large negative Labor Cost Variance $ is either under-estimated (fix the standards) or under-performing (fix the process). Hours Efficiency % by operation type tells you which it is - a consistent miss on one operation across many jobs points to a standard that's wrong. Watch the rework split: a work center where rework is a meaningful slice of actual hours is bleeding margin twice, and it's usually the highest-return thing to attack first.
The sample uses realistic synthetic routing and time-clock data - no real operators, jobs, or labor records.
Metrics it tracks
| Metric | What it means |
|---|---|
| Estimated Hours | Standard hours the routing operations were quoted at. |
| Actual Hours | Hours actually clocked on the floor against those operations. |
| Hours Efficiency % | Estimated hours divided by actual hours - standard hours earned per hour clocked; under 100% means the floor runs slower than estimate. |
| Labor Cost Variance $ | Actual labor cost minus estimated labor cost - extra labor dollars spent above estimate. |
| Rework Hours | Actual hours clocked on operations flagged as rework. |
| Operation Count | Number of routing operations in scope. |
Used by: Operations managers, shop foremen, and owners managing estimating standards
Frequently asked questions
What is hours efficiency on a shop floor?
It's the standard (estimated) hours earned divided by the actual hours clocked. At 100% the floor exactly matches the standards your quotes assume; under 100% means operations are taking longer than estimated, which directly erodes job margin and shop-rate realization.
Why do rework hours matter so much?
Rework hours are clocked on operations that had to be redone. They're paid for twice but quoted once, so they hit margin harder than ordinary overruns. Isolating rework by work center usually surfaces the single highest-return process fix in the shop.
Can I build this on my own time-clock data?
Yes. Export your routing operations with estimated and actual hours and labor cost - the shop-floor data collection your ERP already captures - and use this as a template. The sample is fully synthetic, so there's no real labor data in what you see here.
Build this report on your own data
Clone this Machine / job shops template — describe it and we’ll generate sample data so you can try it free, or upload your own export. You get a fully modeled, branded Power BI project that opens in Power BI Desktop.
Use this as a template →