Development of an experience database for truck loading operations

Planning and estimating earthmoving operations rely on the ability to colle ct field data and analyze operations. Two recent developments have dramatic ally changed the methods used and the results obtained in this process. The first relates to data collection where instrumentation placed on loading a nd hauling units can replace stopwatches as a primary source of data. The s econd relates to analysis where simulation techniques can replace determini stic job studies. This paper reviews these developments and shows that data collection and analysis techniques must complement each other. The use of stopwatches may satisfy the requirements of job studies but does not satisf y those of simulation. Simulation requires knowledge of the variance associ ated with the activity duration. Obtaining it from a few data points collec ted using stopwatches is frequently statistically incomplete. Simulation re quires a continuous form of data collection to support its modeling process and, hence, offers new challenges to the data collection methods. Instrume nted vehicles present a viable opportunity to collect continuous field data . However, the data collected using the instrumented vehicles must be chara cterized in such a way to reflect the actual job conditions under which the y were recorded. As a result, this research extends the concept of data col lection to building an experience database. Field data and visualization te chniques are presented in this paper to illustrate the concept of the exper ience database.