How does Fastmarkets estimate the man hours in Labor cost/manning?

Labor cost is worked out on an averaged capacity utilization. For integrated mills, the staff for the pulp line is included: the overall manning is split up into the PM and other processes. The Summary on the flowsheets shows total number of people (machine operators, maintenance technicians (both paid on hourly basis) and employees paid on monthly salaries (exempt or non-exempt of overtime). The numbers for workers/employees are then broken down into man hours/ton(ne) produced, taking into account the annual man hours per region. Finally, the man hours/ton(ne) produced are multiplied by hourly salaries (those of monthly salaries were broken down into hourly salaries also). Find more information on Labor loaders. 

Labor cost estimates for each mill include hourly labor costs and salaried labor costs. There are two components for hourly labor costs, operations labor cost and maintenance labor cost. These variables determine the level of cost for operations and maintenance labor, average regional wage rate, number of hours worked per year and number of days of operation per year.

There are also two components for salaried labor costs, exempt labor cost and non-exempt labor cost. RISI breaks out salaried overtime exempt labor and salaried non-exempt labor that is eligible for overtime because each employee type is paid differently, impacting the total cost to the mill. These costs have been developed on a per ton basis and then proportioned based on the product and fiber furnish at each mill.

If a mill's actual maintenance man hours per ton are above or below the benchmark average, an adjustment is made to the maintenance materials calculation to reflect the variance.