Free manpower loading chart · No signup
A labor histogram by period with crew counts and a built-in S-curve — type your planned hours and the bell-curve loading and cumulative progress draw themselves.
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Field PM has this exact form built in — crews fill it out from a phone, the data flows into the project record, and you get a clean PDF for the GC or owner with one click. No re-typing, no lost paperwork, no missed signatures.
Paper / Excel
Field PM
A manpower loading chart (or labor histogram) shows how many worker-hours — or how many crew members — you plan to have on a project for each period of the schedule. Plotted as bars over time it forms the classic bell shape: a ramp-up at the start, a peak during the bulk of the work, and a ramp-down at close-out. It tells you when you need to hire, when you peak, and when you demobilize.
The S-curve is the cumulative of the manpower-loading hours. Add up the planned hours period by period and divide by the total, and the running percentage traces an "S" — slow at the start, steep through the peak, flattening at completion. This template builds both from the same hours you enter, so they always agree.
The template converts planned hours to an approximate crew at 40 hours per week (hours ÷ 40). So 1,000 planned hours in a week is roughly 25 workers. Change the period to monthly and adjust if you run 50- or 60-hour weeks — the formula is right in the sheet.
Yes. Type Planned and Actual hours in the gold columns and the histogram bars, the S-curve, % complete, peak crew, average crew, and hours-remaining all recalculate instantly. It works in Excel, Google Sheets, and Numbers — no macros.
A manpower loading chart answers the question a GC or owner asks on every project: how many people will you have on site, and when? Plotted as a histogram of planned hours over the schedule, it shows the ramp-up, the peak, and the demobilization — so everyone can see when the trade stacks up and when the site is busiest.
Most contractors build this from scratch in Excel each time, fighting with chart wizards. This template skips that: enter planned hours by period and the loading bars and the S-curve draw themselves, with crew size, peak crew, average crew, and percent complete calculated for you. Add actual hours and you can track the real curve against the plan.
A spreadsheet histogram is a snapshot the day you build it. Field PM builds the loading curve and S-curve from real field hours by cost code, so your manpower plan updates itself as the crews log time — and you see the fade before it costs you.