One of the most common problems in component manufacturing is not that companies lack effort, experience, or good people. The problem is that many companies are still trying to price, schedule, and measure labor using methods that were never accurate enough for the decisions being made. Board footage is one such method.
Board foot has been used for years because it is simple, familiar, and easy to understand. But familiar does not always mean accurate. A truss plant can run two jobs with similar board footage and have two very different labor requirements. One job may have simple repetitive trusses. Another may have shorter runs, more setup, more handling, more cutting complexity, more web members, more pitch breaks, or more assembly interruptions. Board footage does not see those differences clearly enough. But, Work Minutes do.
Work Minutes are far more accurate than board footage because they are based on the actual labor activity required to produce the work. Time and again, this has been proven in real operations. The labor cost is not created by board footage alone. It is created by the cutting, setup, staging, handling, assembly, movement, interruptions, and production methods required to complete the job.
That is why a Work Minute system provides better visibility. It connects the labor estimate to the real work being performed.
The good news is that companies do not have to immediately change their existing pricing system to begin using Work Minutes. In fact, the best implementation method is often to run Work Minutes alongside the current method at first. Keep the existing pricing approach in place. Then implement, test, verify, and compare the Work Minute results against actual production and financial performance.
Running both pricing systems side by side will reduce disruption. More importantly, it will allow leadership to see the difference between what the current method assumes and what the work actually requires.
This time of year can be one of the best times to begin. Instead of waiting until the plant is under peak pressure, a company can start building the system now. The team can compare jobs. Estimators can see the labor difference by job type. Production leaders can verify whether the expected Work Minutes match the results on the floor. Management can begin seeing which jobs are helping margin and which jobs are quietly consuming profit. That is the real value.
A properly implemented Work Minute system provides a much clearer picture of the expected gross profit for each job before the job is completed. Instead of waiting until the end of the quarter to find out whether the company made money, leadership can start verifying performance daily.
Imagine the gains. No more guessing what the quarterly P/L will look like. No more hoping the average works out. No more assuming that high board footage automatically means good production performance or good margin. With Work Minutes, each job can be evaluated with better labor visibility. Pricing can become more disciplined. Scheduling can become more realistic. Production expectations can become more measurable. Gross profit can be tracked with greater confidence because the labor side of the job is no longer hidden behind broad averages.
This is not about replacing judgment. It is about giving good leaders better information. Companies struggling with labor costs often do not lack hardworking people. They struggle because the system does not make the work visible soon enough. By the time the quarterly P/L shows the problem, the jobs are already completed, the labor is already spent, and the margin is already gone.
Work Minutes will change that conversation. They allow a company to ask better questions earlier: Did this job price correctly? Did the schedule reflect the real labor load? Did production perform as expected? Was the issue estimating, scheduling, production flow, product mix, or pricing discipline? Those are the questions that lead to better management decisions.
The important point is this: implementation does not need to be sudden, risky, or disruptive. A company can begin by using Work Minutes as a parallel measurement system. Test them. Verify them. Compare them. Adjust where needed. Then, once the leadership team trusts the data, the company can begin replacing weaker practices with stronger ones.
That is how lasting improvement usually works, not by forcing a dramatic change overnight, but by building a better system that proves itself through use. Board footage may still have a place as a material measurement. But, it should not be relied on as the primary labor standard for pricing, scheduling, or profit forecasting. Labor should be measured by the work required, not just by the wood consumed.
For companies serious about improving pricing accuracy, schedule reliability, and gross profit visibility, Work Minutes provides a more practical path forward. The next step is not to abandon everything currently being used. The next step is to begin testing a better method before the old method costs another quarter of avoidable margin loss.
The decision is simple: if your company wants better labor visibility, more accurate pricing, more realistic scheduling, and a clearer picture of expected gross profit before the quarter is over, TDC can help you implement proven Work Minutes time standards in a practical, low-disruption way. You do not have to abandon your current system overnight. You can test, verify, and improve with guidance from standards that have been proven repeatedly in real component manufacturing operations. The next step is to stop relying on broad averages and begin measuring the labor that truly drives performance.
If your operation feels harder than it should, there is usually a reason. The answer is not more pressure, more meetings, or asking good people to work around unclear systems. The answer is clarity.
Positive change begins when leaders stop asking good people to work around unclear systems and start making the work easier to see, teach, measure, and improve. That is the practical focus of my new book. The audiobook is now available for those who prefer to listen while driving, traveling, or moving through the workday.
Todd Drummond Consulting helps manufacturers identify what is limiting performance, whether it begins with workflow, labor visibility, capacity planning, training, scheduling, handoffs, or leadership decisions. With nearly 40 years of manufacturing experience and almost 25 years as a full-time consultant, I provide practical guidance that helps leaders simplify work, improve flow, reduce waste, protect margins, and move forward with confidence. Review my client testimonials to see what other manufacturers have said about working with Todd Drummond Consulting.
Todd Drummond Consulting, LLC • Copyrights © 2026
todd@todd-drummond.com • www.todd-drummond.co