Road construction cost control: equipment, fuel, materials

Short answer: Road construction cost control means tracking machine hours, fuel, asphalt and aggregate consumption, and subcontractor work for every site in one system. Komatsu found that heavy equipment idles close to 40% of the time on average, and Caterpillar puts the cost of one idle hour at roughly $10. An ERP shows these costs site by site and flags budget overruns while there is still time to act.

In a road construction company, money usually leaks in three places: machines standing idle, fuel dispensed without proper records, and more material used on site than the estimate allows. Road construction cost control exists to close those three gaps with numbers. This article covers which metrics to track, why spreadsheets and paper trip sheets fall short, and what changes after automation, with sourced figures.

The market in Uzbekistan is substantial. According to the national Statistics Agency, the public road network was 42.4 thousand km long as of 1 January 2025 (stat.uz, 2025). In January–June 2025 alone, 7.044 trillion soums went into road works and 8,619 km of roads were reconstructed or repaired (Committee for Roads, 2025). At that scale, every percent saved matters to a contractor that has won a tender.

What is road construction cost control, and how is it different from general construction accounting?

Road construction cost control is management accounting that compares actual equipment, fuel, material and labour costs for each site (section or chainage) against the estimate.

In building construction, materials dominate costs. In road works, the machine fleet takes centre stage: excavators, graders, rollers, asphalt pavers, dump trucks. The same machine works on several sites, moves between them, may be rented, or may work alongside a subcontractor's equipment. So "how much fuel did we use this month" is not a useful question. The useful one is "which site, which machine, how many engine hours, how much fuel, and how many cubic metres or tonnes of work done".

We cover ERP for construction companies in general in a separate post: ERP for construction companies.

Where does a road construction company lose the most money?

A pattern we often see in our projects: the owner knows the total spend but cannot break it down by site and machine. The main leaks are:

Idle equipment. A Komatsu study found average idle time for heavy machines of nearly 40%, and the figure remains high today (Komatsu, 2022).
The price of idling. Caterpillar estimates one hour of idle time at about $10: $4 in fuel and $6 in maintenance and repair (Caterpillar).
Paper fuel records. Trip sheets arrive late, litres dispensed are not matched against engine hours, and over-consumption shows up only at month end, if at all.
Material consumption. Asphalt concrete, crushed stone, sand and bitumen arrive on site, but the estimate is reconciled with actual use only when completion certificates are closed.
Subcontractors. Completed volumes, advances paid and returned materials live in separate spreadsheets.
Schedule and budget overruns. McKinsey reports that large construction projects typically finish 20% later than planned and can run up to 80% over budget (McKinsey, 2016).

For example, assume 20 machines working 8 hours a day, 22 days a month, with 40% idle time. That is 1,408 idle hours a month. At Caterpillar's estimate of $10 per hour, that is roughly $14,000 of hidden cost every month. An illustration only: local fuel and service prices will change the result.

How do you automate equipment and fuel tracking?

Equipment tracking is a register where each machine's engine hours, mileage, refuelling and repairs are recorded against a site.

Each machine has its own record: plate number, asset number, fuel norm (litres per hour or per 100 km), responsible driver or operator.
A shift report: which site, how many engine hours, how much work done. The site foreman enters it from a phone instead of waiting for a paper sheet.
Refuelling records: every fill-up from a filling station or your own fuel truck is linked to a machine and a site.
Automatic checks: if actual consumption exceeds the norm by more than an agreed percentage, the system raises an alert.
Telematics integration: many manufacturers expose engine hours, fuel used and idle time under the ISO/TS 15143-3 specification (ISO). Pulling that data into the ERP cuts manual entry.
Preventive maintenance: service is scheduled automatically by engine hours or calendar, and repair costs are charged to the machine.

In Odoo this is built from the Fleet, Maintenance and Inventory apps (fuel and materials stock) plus analytic accounting. Each site is its own analytic account, so fuel, repairs and wages flow into the site's cost automatically.

How do you control asphalt and material consumption on site?

The basis of material control is treating every site as its own warehouse location:

Every batch from the plant or quarry is received into the site location against a weighbridge ticket or waybill.
Consumption is posted to the work types in the estimate: base course, wearing course, shoulders.
The gap between estimated and actual quantity appears in a weekly report, not at month end.
Transfers between sites are documented, not settled by a verbal "we gave it to the next section".

More on inventory principles: warehouse management with Odoo Inventory.

How should subcontractors and completion certificates be managed?

With a subcontractor, three things need to sit in one place: the contract value, certificates of completed work, and advances paid. In an ERP, subcontracting runs through the purchasing module, each certificate is linked to the site's analytic account, and payments are matched against the outstanding balance automatically. On the tax side, e-invoices are exchanged through Didox: Didox and ERP integration.

What changes after automation: in numbers

Idle time becomes visible: the roughly 40% average idle time (Komatsu, 2022) is now measured per machine and per site, and each idle hour removed saves about $10 (Caterpillar).
Moving from paper to digital workflows saves staff time: in a McKinsey example, a tunnelling contractor saved its team more than 20 hours a week (McKinsey, 2016).
Data-driven maintenance: in the same research, a Middle Eastern contractor used fleet analytics to prevent breakdowns and saved millions of dollars in downtime, fuel and maintenance (McKinsey, 2016).
The sector has large untapped productivity: McKinsey Global Institute found construction labour productivity grew only about 1% a year over two decades (versus 2.8% for the whole economy), and acting in seven areas at once could lift it by 50–60% (McKinsey Global Institute, 2017).
Budget deviations surface within the week rather than at month end, because material and fuel consumption is calculated from the site location automatically.

How does Deep Vision approach road construction companies?

Deep Vision is an official Odoo Gold Partner based in Tashkent. Our Odoo partner page lists 7 certified specialists and 24 client references, including companies in construction and logistics, with 89% customer retention (Odoo partner page). The team of Deep Vision founder Amon Olimov also produced Odoo's Uzbek translation, so foremen and storekeepers can work in their own language: Odoo in Uzbek.

On a road construction project we usually work in this order:

Diagnostics: how sites, the fleet, and fuel and material flows are handled today.
Phase one: equipment register, fuel tracking and site warehouses. Standard sales and inventory modules are often live in 6–8 weeks.
Phase two: analytic accounting, subcontractors, maintenance and management reports. A full rollout typically takes 2–6 months.

In our experience with businesses like these, the most common mistake is trying to automate everything at once. More on that: 7 ERP implementation mistakes. On which metrics an owner should see: what management accounting is.

If you want to bring order to equipment and fuel tracking, fill in a short brief or see our Odoo implementation service.

Frequently asked questions

Do road builders need dedicated software, or is an ERP enough?

Usually a configured ERP is enough. Odoo has fleet, maintenance, inventory, purchasing and analytic accounting; road-specific reports such as engine hours and fuel norms are added through configuration.

Can fuel be tracked without telematics?

Yes. Shift reports from foremen and refuelling records are enough to start. If telematics is connected later, data flows in automatically and manual entry drops.

How are rented and subcontractor machines handled?

Rental is booked as a purchased service and charged to the site, while hours worked appear in the same report as your own machines. Subcontractor work is accepted against a completion certificate.

How can I see profit for each site?

Each site is set up as an analytic account. Revenue (certificates) and costs (materials, fuel, wages, repairs, subcontracting) are linked to it, so a per-site margin report is always available.

How long does implementation take?

In Deep Vision's experience a typical project takes 2–6 months. Starting with the equipment register and site inventory brings first results much sooner.

Sources

To get road construction cost control in order, leave a brief or call +998 77 093 00 07.

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