Your Excavation Problem Might Actually Be a Trucking Problem
You can have the right excavator, a good operator, plenty of trucks, and a capable crew—and still have a bad excavation operation.
The problem is not always how fast you can dig.
Sometimes the problem is everything happening around the excavator.
Too few trucks and the excavator waits.
Too many trucks and the trucks wait.
Either way, you’re paying for something that isn’t producing.
That is where excavation planning needs to go beyond asking:
How many trucks should we send?
The better question is:
How do we balance the entire operation to move the material at the best achievable production rate and cost?
Waiting Costs Money
Consider a typical excavation and export operation.
You might have:
a large excavator
an operator
several laborers
grade support
six trucks
supervision
possibly additional support equipment
Every one of those resources has a cost.
Now imagine the trucks cannot return fast enough to keep the excavator loading.
The excavator finishes loading a truck and waits for the next one.
Five minutes here. Ten minutes there.
It doesn’t look catastrophic.
But the excavator is still costing money. The operator is still costing money. The crew is still on the clock. And you’re moving fewer cubic yards that day.
Now flip the situation.
You send more trucks to make sure the excavator never waits.
Production improves—but trucks start stacking up.
Now you may have six trucks billing by the hour while several of them spend a significant portion of the day sitting in line.
You solved one problem by creating another.
More Trucks Doesn’t Automatically Mean More Production
There is a point where adding another truck helps the operation.
There is also a point where adding another truck mostly adds cost.
Suppose your excavator can load a truck in five minutes.
If the complete truck cycle—load, haul, dump, return, and reposition—takes 30 minutes, you can begin estimating how many trucks are needed to keep material moving continuously.
But change that cycle to 45 minutes and the operation changes.
Change the haul distance.
Add traffic.
Slow down the dump site.
Increase the loading time.
Change truck capacity.
Any of those can change the balance.
That’s why “We normally use six trucks” isn’t a production plan.
It’s an assumption.
Too Few Trucks Can Be Expensive Too
This is where trying to save money can backfire.
Someone looks at the trucking cost and says:
“Let’s cut two trucks.”
That certainly reduces the hourly trucking bill.
But what happens to everything else?
If the remaining trucks can’t keep up, you may now have a large excavator and an entire crew waiting throughout the day.
You saved two truck rates but reduced the production of the entire operation.
And that can increase your cost per cubic yard.
That’s the number that matters.
If one plan moves 500 CY in a day and another moves 800 CY, comparing their daily cost alone doesn’t tell you which operation performed better.
You need to understand what you spent to produce each unit of work.
Don’t Optimize the Truck Count. Optimize the Operation.
This is the bigger lesson.
Construction production isn’t about maximizing every individual resource.
It’s about balancing the system.
Your excavation operation might include:
Excavation → Loading → Hauling → Dumping → Returning → Loading Again
The slowest or most constrained part of that cycle controls what the rest of the system can accomplish.
And every resource waiting behind that constraint still costs money.
A strong superintendent or PM should be thinking about both sides of the equation:
Production: How many cubic yards can we realistically move?
Cost: What will it cost us to move each cubic yard?
The best operation isn’t necessarily the one with the fewest trucks.
It isn’t necessarily the one with the most trucks either.
It’s the combination that produces the best achievable balance of cost, production, and risk.
Plan the Cycle Before the Crew Starts
You don’t need complicated software to make a better initial decision.
Start with the basic operating assumptions:
total excavation quantity
truck capacity
excavator loading time
haul distance
loaded travel time
dump/unload time
return travel time
onsite maneuvering time
productive hours available
number of trucks
From there, estimate the truck cycle and expected production.
Then ask another question that often gets missed:
What does waiting cost?
If a truck waits, what’s the hourly cost?
If the excavator waits, what’s the equipment and operator cost?
If the excavator stops the entire operation, how many other people and pieces of equipment are affected?
That changes the conversation from:
“Six trucks seems about right.”
to:
“Here’s why this operation needs six trucks.”
That’s a much stronger plan.
Then Take the Plan to the Field
The calculation is only the starting point.
The field will tell you whether your assumptions were right.
Track actual cycle times.
How long does loading really take?
How long is the haul?
How long are trucks waiting at the dump site?
How long are they waiting onsite?
Is the excavator waiting?
What is the actual daily quantity?
If you planned for a 35-minute cycle and trucks are consistently taking 50 minutes, something changed.
Find out why.
Maybe traffic is worse than expected.
Maybe the disposal facility is backing up.
Maybe trucks can’t maneuver efficiently onsite.
Maybe you’re digging harder material than anticipated.
Maybe the loading operation itself is the bottleneck.
The answer isn’t automatically send more trucks.
The answer is to understand the constraint and make the best available adjustment.
Use the Math to Improve the Judgment
This is exactly why we built the free One Level Higher Excavation Truckload Calculator.
Use it before the operation starts to pressure-test your trucking assumptions and understand how truck capacity, cycle time, haul conditions, and truck count affect expected production.
Then use actual field performance to improve the plan.
Because a calculator can help with the math.
It can’t make the judgment.
The superintendent still has to understand the operation.
The PM still has to understand the cost.
And somebody has to recognize when the original assumptions no longer match what’s happening in the field.
The Bottom Line
Don’t send six trucks because that’s what you normally send.
Don’t send four just because you’re trying to reduce trucking cost.
Build the operation.
Estimate the cycle.
Understand what every waiting resource costs.
Establish your expected production.
Measure what actually happens.
Then adjust.
Because the goal isn’t to keep every person and machine busy.
The goal is to move the material at the best achievable cost and production rate.
That’s the difference between putting resources on a job and actually controlling production.
Strong Leaders. Disciplined Systems. Better Results.
Before your next excavation operation starts, pressure-test the trucking plan. Estimate the truck cycle, balance the operation, and see how your assumptions affect production.
Try the free One Level Higher Excavation Truckload Calculator:
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