Analysis of construction hours: Dropia automates productivity control by site.

News & Insights

Oct 23, 2025

10/23/25

5 minMin Read

Automated analysis of construction hours with Dropia: productivity control by site, detection of discrepancies, real-time optimization of profitability.

Hour control is fundamental in the construction industry. Every poorly allocated hour, every unproductive hour directly impacts profitability. Dropia fully automates hour analysis, transforming timesheets into actionable intelligence to optimize your productivity.

Why hour analysis is crucial in construction

Hours account for 40-60% of a project's cost

In most construction projects:

  • Labor: 40-60% of total cost

  • Materials: 30-45%

  • Other costs: 10-20%

A 10% variation in hours thus has more impact than a 10% variation in materials. It's the main lever of profitability.

Every hour counts

On a project budgeted at 500 hours:

  • 10% excess hours = 50 additional hours

  • At €45/hour charged = €2,250 of additional cost

  • On a margin of €10,000, that's -22.5% profitability

Productivity varies greatly

Between workers, between tasks, between projects:

  • A senior worker can be 30-50% more productive than a junior

  • A poorly organized task can take 2x longer than necessary

  • A project with good access is 20% faster

Identifying these variations allows for optimizing assignments and organization.

The limitations of manual hour analysis

Time-consuming

Manually analyzing 500 hours spread over 5 workers and 10 tasks:

  • Consolidating timesheets: 30 minutes

  • Calculating totals by worker and by task: 20 minutes

  • Comparing with the forecast budget: 20 minutes

  • Identifying discrepancies: 15 minutes

  • Producing the report: 15 minutes

  • Total: 1 hour 40 minutes

For 10 projects per week: 16 hours of administrative work.

Always late

Manual analysis is done at best weekly, often monthly. Productivity issues are detected 1-4 weeks late.

Inaccurate

Between entry errors, misallocated times, and forgetfulness, the reliability of manual analysis is rarely optimal.

How Dropia automates hour analysis

Automatic collection and intelligent allocation

Instant mobile timesheets

Every worker logs hours from their smartphone with the Dropia app:

  • Project selection (optional geolocation)

  • Task selection

  • Start and end of work

  • Total time: 10 seconds

Automatic allocation

Hours are automatically:

  • Allocated to the correct project

  • Linked to the correct task

  • Assigned to the correct worker

  • Valued at the specific charged hourly rate

No re-entry, no allocation errors.

Automatic real-time calculations

Dropia calculates instantly:

By project:

  • Total hours consumed vs budget

  • Total labor cost vs forecast

  • Distribution by task

  • Distribution by worker

  • Discrepancies in hours and euros

By task:

  • Actual hours vs budgeted hours

  • Productivity ratio (budgeted/actual)

  • Actual cost vs forecast cost

  • Identification of drifting tasks

By worker:

  • Hours worked on each project

  • Relative productivity by type of task

  • Comparison with team average

  • Evolution over time

Automatic comparative analyses

Inter-project

For similar projects:

  • Which project consumes the most/least hours?

  • What are the reasons for these differences?

  • What lessons for the next ones?

Inter-period

Evolution of productivity over time:

  • Is productivity improving?

  • Impact of training

  • Effect of experience

Inter-worker

Anonymized benchmarking:

  • Who are the most productive by type of task?

  • Who needs training or support?

  • Optimization of future assignments

The 5 key automated analyses by Dropia

Analysis 1: Discrepancy of budgeted vs actual hours by task

Automatic table:

TâcheBudgetRéelÉcart%Fondations80h75h-5h-6,3% ✅Maçonnerie200h215h+15h+7,5% ⚠️Charpente60h78h+18h+30% 🔴Couverture40h38h-2h-5% 

Immediate identification: major problem on framing

Action: In-depth investigation of this task

  • Which worker? Entire team underproductive or an individual?

  • What period? Recent problem or since the beginning?

  • What is the cause? Technical difficulty, organization, method?

Analysis 2: Productivity by worker on project

Automatic table for the "Villa Durand" project:

CompagnonHeuresTâchesProductivité*Jean (senior)85hMaçonnerie115% ✅Marc (senior)92hCharpente95% ⚠️Paul (junior)78hAide maçon85% ⚠️Luc (junior)65hCharpente70% 🔴

*Productivity = ratio between expected production and actual production

Insights:

  • Jean overperforming, candidate for complex projects

  • Luc underperforming on framing, needs training or reallocation

  • Marc slightly below on framing, investigate why

Analysis 3: Temporal evolution of hour consumption

Automatic graph

Curve showing week by week:

  • Hours consumed (blue bars)

  • Proportional budgeted hours (green line)

Immediate visual detection:

  • Weeks 1-3: consumption compliant

  • Week 4: peak consumption (+35%) → Investigation

  • Weeks 5-6: return to normal

Correlation with events

Dropia allows annotation of the graph:

  • Week 4: Late delivery of materials → unproductive wait times

  • Explanation of the discrepancy found

  • Lesson: improve delivery coordination

Analysis 4: Actual hourly cost per project

Automatic comparative table:

ChantierBudget /hRéel /hÉcartVilla A45€44€-2,2% ✅Maison B48€52€+8,3% ⚠️Immeuble C42€47€+11,9% 🔴

Cause analysis for Building C:

Dropia details automatically:

  • 60% of the time: senior workers (high cost)

  • 40% of the time: junior workers (normal cost)

Explanation: Complex project requiring more seniors than expected

Action: Future project estimates will integrate this realistic ratio

Analysis 5: Occupancy rate and unproductive time

Automatic analysis over a monthly period:

Total available hours: 12 workers × 151h = 1,812h

Automatic distribution by Dropia:

  • Billable project hours: 1,520h (84%) ✅

  • Travel hours: 145h (8%) ⚠️

  • Training hours: 40h (2%)

  • Waiting/unproductive hours: 107h (6%) 🔴

Insight: 6% unproductive hours = 107h × €45 = €4,815 in cost without value

Automatic investigation of causes:

  • Waiting for materials: 45h

  • Unresolved technical issues: 28h

  • Poor coordination: 34h

Identified corrective actions:

  • Improve delivery management (savings: ~€2,000/month)

  • Enhance technical assistance (savings: ~€1,250/month)

Automatic alerts on hour analysis

Alert for hour overruns by task

Trigger: hour consumption > budget + 10%

Notification sent to the project manager: "⚠️ Task 'Electricity' villa project: 88h consumed for 75h budgeted (+17%)"

Action required: Immediate investigation

Alert for abnormal productivity

Trigger: worker productivity < 75% over 3 consecutive days

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