Manpower is labour force, workers' effort normally quantified in man-hours, man-days etc (units of time, but not to be confused with duration) production rates is an output and could refer to either of:

  • activity quantity per unit of duration, as per BoQ (e.g. m3/d, t/w, piece/h etc)
  • resource quantity per unit of duration, as per resource assignment onto activity acc. to job estimation norms (e.g. manhours/day, equipment-hours/day, material UoM/day)

Activity output in some UoM/planning unit of time (e.g. m3 of excavation per day) is normally determined by "recipe" (e.g. 1 m3 of excavation requires x man-hours of digger labour or y equipment-hours for non-labour, mechanised work). limit resource output = max. Unit/Time determines the number of each resource (workers, machines) required to work concurrently to achieve set workload in set duration.  

The term rate may also refer to price (or cost) for a resource or activity UoM. price/ unit expressed in currency value/ unit (e.g. $/man-hour, $/equipment-hour, $/kg etc)