It provides management with data that is necessary to determine labor expenditures on project work for calculation of statistical labor costs and to compare actual construction performance with estimating standards. It also serves to determine the effectiveness of labor utilization in performing administrative and support functions, both for internal unit management and for development of planning standards by higher command. For labor reporting to be effective, an accurate labor accounting or timekeeping system is mandatory. In the system, the basic unit for measuring labor is the man-hour which, as you know, is the amount of labor produced by one person working 1 hour of time. Similarly, ten persons working 9 hours in a scheduled workday is equivalent to 11.25 man-days.
All labor is considered as being either productive labor or overhead.
Productive labor includes all labor that directly or indirectly contributes to the accomplishment of the mission, including military operations and readiness, disaster control operations, training, and, of course, construction operations. Direct labor includes all labor expended directly on assigned construction tasks, either in the field or in the shop, and which contributes directly to the completion of the end product. For EAs, this includes, for example, surveying on a tasked construction project, travel time to and from project sites, and the preparation of as-built drawings. Indirect labor comprises all labor required to support construction operations, but which does not produce an end product itself. Overhead labor is not considered to be productive labor in that it does not contribute directly or indirectly to the end product.