How do I count two workers on one part?

Add their personhours. If each works 20 minutes, enter 40 minutes of labor per part even when elapsed operation time is only 20 minutes.

Does the loaded rate include supervision?

Use your approved costing policy. If supervision and indirect support are already in the loaded rate, applying another support charge would count them twice.

Where should programming time go?

Put one-time programming personhours in setup labor. Production edits repeated for every piece belong in production labor per processed part.

Why divide labor cost by accepted pieces?

Accepted pieces must recover the labor spent on the whole run, including rejects. The processed count determines production work; the accepted count determines the final allocation.

Welding & Fabrication calculator

Fabrication Labor Cost Calculator

Estimate the loaded labor charge for a fabrication run. You need processed and accepted counts, summed hands-on personhours per piece, setup personhours and your loaded labor rate.

What this calculator does

Price fabrication production and setup personhours once at your loaded labor rate.

Formula used

Production personhours = processed parts × personhours per processed part
Total labor cost = (production personhours + setup personhours) × loaded labor rate
Labor cost per accepted part = total labor cost ÷ accepted parts

Inputs explained

Processed Parts: Fabrication routing count, including rejected pieces.
Accepted Parts: Final accepted count for the same fabrication run.
Production Labor per Processed Part: Sum of fitter, welder and finisher hands-on time per piece.
Setup Labor: Sum of programming, kitting and fixture preparation personhours.
Loaded Labor Rate: Approved wage and burden rate including allocated support labor.

How to use the result

Best suited to fabrication routing labor estimate, reviewing staffing cost after final inspection.
Excludes material, consumables and machine charges outside the entered labor rate. Different labor rates require separate operation estimates and a documented weighted rate.

Current U.S. benchmarks

The producer price index for steel mill products stands at 381.162 (BLS, Aug 2026), up 23.4% from a year earlier. Quotes priced off last quarter's material cost miss this move.
Industrial electricity averages 9.77 cents per kWh across the U.S. (EIA, Jul 2026), up 4.7% from a year earlier. Energy-intensive steps carry this directly into unit cost.
U.S. iron and steel import customs value ran $2.2B in Aug 2026 (Census International Trade). The U.S. ran a trade deficit of $0.6B in the category that month. This dollar total mixes price, quantity, product mix, origin, and timing; it does not measure physical import volume or prove a tariff or reshoring effect.
The U.S. has 53,790 fabricated metal products establishments employing about 1,441,471 workers (Census County Business Patterns, 2023).

Common questions

How do I count two workers on one part? Add their personhours. If each works 20 minutes, enter 40 minutes of labor per part even when elapsed operation time is only 20 minutes.
Does the loaded rate include supervision? Use your approved costing policy. If supervision and indirect support are already in the loaded rate, applying another support charge would count them twice.
Where should programming time go? Put one-time programming personhours in setup labor. Production edits repeated for every piece belong in production labor per processed part.
Why divide labor cost by accepted pieces? Accepted pieces must recover the labor spent on the whole run, including rejects. The processed count determines production work; the accepted count determines the final allocation.

Last reviewed 2026-10-06.