Piping Manhour Estimation

There is no such thing as an "International Standard" for estimating piping man hours.

Each company recorded or not has their own unit of measure based on how they are organized and
how they operate.

Below, I have given you some data showing factors for the home office hours to do piping
engineering and design work. Regardless of the type of project, this type of data reflects only part of
the piping cost picture. The other part of the home office hour picture is the hourly rate to do this
work. This hourly rate depends on where you do the work and the level of expertise (training,
experience and supervision) the people have.
Where you have the work done includes the country, the city and the company. If the work is done
by one of the top, first class U.S., U.K. or other European engineering companies in one of their home
engineering offices you will see fewer hours but at a higher cost. This same company might choose
to out-source the work to one of its overseas partners or subsidiaries where the work may need twice
the number of hours to achieve the same level of quality. These hours, however, will be at a rate that
is far below the U.S. rate. So you need to know where the work will be done and adjust the number
of hours and the rates accordingly.

PIPING ESTIMATING DATA

The following data is a summary of the averages of actual data from 4 representative projects
conducted in the late 1990's. The smallest was $9,000,000 and the largest was $60,000,000.

Category Data
Average Total Project Hours = 126,055
Average Total Piping Hours = 33,810
Average Percent Total Piping Hours vs. Total Project Hours = 26.82%

Average Project Line Number Count = 391

Average Project Isometric Count = 1,403

Average Total Piping Design Hours = 26,190

Average Total Piping Material Engineering Hours = 1,854
Average Total Piping Material Control Hours = 800
Average Total Piping Stress Engineering Hours = 1,528
Average Total Lead Piping Engineer, Dep't Prorate & Admin. = 3,438

Average % Piping Design Hours vs. Total Piping Hours = 77.46%

Average % Piping Material Eng. Hrs vs. Total Piping Hours = 5.48%
Average % Piping Material Control. Hrs vs. Total Piping Hours = 2.37%
Average % Piping Stress Eng. Hrs vs. Total Piping Hours = 4.25%
Average % LPE, Dep't/Admin. Hrs vs. Total Piping Hours = 10.17%

Average Total Hours per Line Number = 86.47

Average Isometrics per Line Number = 3.6
Average Total Hours per Isometric = 24.11 appropriate estimate.

There are still many other factors that will impact the Total Installed Cost (TIC) of the piping for a
project. These other factors include the pipe material, the fabrication, the NDE requirements, the
logistics, the final installation, the testing and any pre-start-up preparation.
• Pipe material: This is a multi-part issue. There is the metallurgy itself (carbon steel vs. alloy. There
is a big difference between the wide ranges of materials that might be used. With-in the given metal
there is then the pipe size which affects the cost and finally there is the pipe schedule (wall thickness)
which not only affects the initial cost of the pipe but it also affects the cost of fabrication.
• Fabrication: The fabrication of the piping systems is either done in a remote “shop” or is
done at the job site. Fabrication at a shop is normally done at a cheaper cost than at the job site. The
cheaper cost is the result of the ability to use the jigs, fixtures and automatic welding capabilities that
are available in the shop. For this reason most projects choose to maximize the shop fabrication of
most piping systems. However shop fabrication is only possible up to a point. You will still have to
install the piping spools and make the final field welds.
• NDE requirements: NDE stands for Non-Destructive Examination. Depending on the applicable
Piping Code requirements different levels of NDE is required for welds in piping systems. NDE is
another cost additive to the overall picture.
• Logistics: This relates to the distance and the ramifications involved in the issue of point of
fabrication-to-point of installation. Everything from distance to politics to weather can and will affect
the logistics issue.
• Final installation: This issue is also complex. It is influenced by the job site location and the
availability of qualified personnel. The job site might be in the arctic or it might be in the middle of
the desert. Both of these bring unique problems and will add to the cost of the final project. Final
installation also includes any heat tracing, insulation and painting. In some projects it may include
dangerous and very costly “Tie-Ins” (Hot-Taps) to active systems.
• Testing: The applicable Piping Code will dictate the testing requirements. The client may also
require additional testing over-and-above the Code that will also increase the cost.
• Pre-start-up preparation: This is a category of costly work that may include special cleaning,
pickling of the pipe or other internal pipe surface preparation.

I would suggest that someone in your company has data on all or most of these categories for at
least 10 past projects. However you will need to determine, ahead of time all or most of the factors. I
recommend that you define a very clear and detailed scope of work on which to base your estimate.

Piping Stress Man-hour estimation

process for a specific Project
 Written by Anup Kumar Dey in Piping Stress Analysis ,Piping Stress Basics ,Project
Management
Man-hour is the unit for estimating the time required for completing an activity of a
project. Man-hours estimation is a crucial activity for winning projects. Labor cost
constitutes a considerable amount of the project cost and the same is calculated by
estimating man-hours.

Importance of Man-Hour Estimation

Estimating the project man-hour is a very critical activity and should be done very accurately.
Any mistake in this action may result in a huge loss to any organization. If more man-hours are
quoted then the project may not be awarded to the organization and if less man-hour is quoted
then the design company may incur a cost in the long run. So one should make a competitive
man-hour estimate considering all activities.

Piping stress analysis is a very important activity in piping design and separate man-hours must
be claimed from the client for this. Normally, on average, piping stress analysis-related activities
require roughly 8-12% of the total piping man-hour. The man-hour estimation is done either
during the project bidding activity or during the initial phase of any project. So hardly any firm
data is available while man-hour estimation is done. So sufficient cushion needs to be added for
rework activity. The following write-up will provide a guideline for the piping stress man-hour
estimation process for any project. Broadly, there are three practices for man-hours calculation
that are followed in established EPC organizations. They are:

Piping Man-hours estimation

1. Estimating Piping Man-hour based on Stress

Packages
Normal practice is to estimate the number of stress packages from available P&ID, then multiply
the same by some constant value (decided based on experience). Few organizations divide stress
packages into three groups,

 highly critical stress systems

 moderately critical stress systems and
 lower critical stress systems
Lets for example if for a project 250 stress packages are estimated out of which 20 are highly
critical, 100 are moderately critical, and rest 130 are lower critical then manhour estimates will
be =1.2 X (20×50 + 100×40 + 130×30) =10680 considering 50 man-hours for a highly critical
package, 40 man-hours for a moderately critical stress package and 30 man-hours for lower
critical stress package. The total value is increased by 20% as the data is not firm.

2. Calculating Piping Man-hour based on Stress

Critical Lines
In this method, the total number of stress critical lines is estimated from the existing P&ID. Then
that value is multiplied by a factor (Normally 12 to 18 depending on the experience of the
existing organization). For example, if the project mentioned above contains 4 stress critical lines
(you have to calculate critical lines from P&ID) per stress system on average, then the total
number of stress critical lines is 250×4=1000. So total piping man-hours estimated would be
approximately 1000 x 12=12000.

3. Estimating Man-hours based on Critical equipment

This method is somewhat similar to the method mentioned in point no 1. In this method, the total
number of equipment is calculated from the P&ID. All equipment is then categorized into three
groups

 Highly critical equipment like Turbines, Compressors, High-temperature Reactors,

Furnaces, etc.
 Moderately critical equipment like Air Fin Cooler, Pumps, High-temperature
Columns, Heat exchangers, etc. and
 Lower Critical equipment like Low-temperature Columns, Heat exchangers, etc.
Then the number of equipment is multiplied by the same predecided (based on experience)
factors to get the total man-hours.

Documents required for Man-Hour calculation

In any of the above situations the following input documents are required at a minimum:

 P&ID (If not available then man-hour estimation can be done based on preliminary
P&ID or FEED P&ID)
  Line List, if available
 Equipment list, if available
However, in my opinion, one should look into the exact scope of work (activity-wise) by the
stress department. Then one should consider reasonable man-hour (which normally takes based
on experience) for each activity. And finally, add all the man-hours of each activity together to
get the final man-hour. This way one could get the man-hour close to the actual.

4. Man-hour Estimation Based on Activities Performed

The first step will be to list out all the activities in the stress scope. For example from the initial
start of any project broadly following stress activities have to be considered:

1. Study of Project Specifications and bid documents

2. Work Instruction and Specification preparation from bid documents if required
3. Pipe Rack Loading (Three or Four Stages)
4. Stress System definition from P&ID
5. Master Critical Line list preparation (Will be updated 3 to 4 times during project tenure)
6. Preliminary stress analysis before receipt of vendor equipment data (without proper
documentation)
7. Final stress analysis after receipt of vendor equipment data (With proper documentation)
8. Spring datasheet and Spring Index preparation
9. Special support design
10. Datasheet preparation for miscellaneous items like an expansion joint, sway brace, strut, etc
11. Trunnion calculation
12. Review of Stress systems
13. Vendor communication
14. Interdepartmental communication with the Civil, Mechanical, and Process departments
15. Technical Bid Evaluation of Spring Hangers and Special items
16. Job close-out report preparation
17. Support Checking of critical lines
18. Support checking of Non-critical line
19. Isometric review and issue
20. Other miscellaneous activities which are not listed above

After listing all such activities one needs to decide on actual time factors for each activity based
on experience and then finally combine all those to get the final man-hour.