Emissions and production penalties/bonuses associated with non-standard earthmoving loading policies

Purpose The performance of earthmoving operations, in terms of emissions, production and cost, is dependent on many variables and has been the study of a number of publications. Such publications look at typical operation design and management, without establishing what the penalties or bonuses might be for non-standard, but still observed, practices. To fill this gap in knowledge, this paper examines alternative loading policies of zero waiting-time loading, fractional loading and double-sided loading, and compares the performance of these with standard single-sided loading. Design/methodology/approach Original recursive relationships, that are amenable to Monte Carlo simulation, are derived. Case study data are used to illustrate the emissions, production and cost penalties or bonuses. Findings Double-sided loading contributes the least impact to the environment and is the most cost effective. Zero waiting-time loading performs the worst in terms of environmental impact and cost. Minimizing truck waiting times through using fractional loading is generally not an attractive policy because it leads to an increase in unit emissions and unit costs. The consequences of adopting fractional loading are detailed. Optimum unit emissions and optimum unit cost are coincident with respect to fleet size for single- and double-sided loading policies. That is, by minimizing unit cost, as in traditional practice, then least impact on the environment is obtained. Not minimizing unit cost will lead to unnecessary emissions. Practical implications The results of this paper will be of interest to those designing and managing earthmoving operations. Originality/value All modeling and results presented in the paper do not exist elsewhere in the literature.