t-harmony for transfer stations— finding your “perfect match”

8/3/2019 T-Harmony for Transfer Stations Finding Your Perfect Match

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TransferStations

T-Harmony for Transfer StationsFinding Your Perfect MatchRay Eriks and Bob Wallace

Transer sTaTion righT sizing (design,

location and aesthetics) is a similar comparison to

a dating service. Sounds strange right? Well, think

about it; you need to know what is right or you, what

individual needs you have, what your long term goals

are, what you are willing to invest and what you are

looking to get out o it.

The Right SizingWhat is Right Sizing when it comes to transer

station design? This is a loaded question. First, we

need to start by thinking about thisto whom are

we asking that question? Is our client a municipality,

a large private company, or a smaller start up? What

is their goala show place or statement about their

community? Is the acility simply a tool to allow

them to best manage and process their materials?

Oten the answer is based noton what they need, butwhat they want or can aord. Municipalities are oten

looking to make a statement. Cost is not the driving

consideration, and thereore, cost is not a prime actor

in the design; so oten in the past these acilities

would be, well, all you can say is ginormous and

very costly. Now, will this change with the severe

downturn in the economy? Only time will tell.

Normally, most questions that come to mind when

you think about right sizing relate to the size o the

building. Think about this rom a slightly dierent

perspective. Shouldnt right sizing really be about

creating the total design and layout that is most

cost eective? Think about the term cost eective

and what we are really saying is What is going to

be the cost per ton to process material through the

building?

There is an old adage that says the shortest distance

between two points (Point A and Point C) is a

straight line. The point o this saying is to get us thinking

efciencythe least amount o eort to achieve our end,

getting rom point A to point C. Lets think about

the route truck and call it point A and the landfll orMRF as Point C. In most circumstances with material

handling and manuacturing processes, you add a point

B into the equation to improve the material along the

way, which creates a value-added condition. (The only

reason to deviate rom the straight line is to make some

type o improvementto add value to the process).

Looking at it in its simplest orm, a transer station is

simply meant to provide the lowest cost, most eective

and environmentally responsible means o getting the

material rom point A to point C. The value-added

is achieved rom cost savings in reduced transportation

by the consolidation o multiple route vehicles into

one large trailer, with the ancillary benefts o reducing

the number o trucks on the road and lowering total

emissions. It is a true example o addition by subtraction.

Right sizing needs to encompass many dierent

aspects to determine what is right sized. The

entire process rom inception to opening needs to

be guided by what will help reduce and control theoperational costs or the lie o the acility. Even this

can be difcult to defne what specifc needs should

Right sizing

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22 WasteAdvantage Magazine May 2010

This facility was designed to handle up to 1500 TPD of MSW with one drive-thru lift-and-load pit.Images courtesy of Cambridge Companies.

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be included in any given project. Your thinking needs to lead to the most

cost-eective design, and includes the right operationally efcient eatures or

every piece o the process. This includes the vehicles delivering the materials,the handling and loading, and the transportation to the landfll. Many times

during consulting visits to sites, statements were heard relating to these two

issues as though they should not be considered and were o no concern to the

site manager. I would witness a transer trailer waiting 40 minutes or more to

get back into the pit and then take an additional 30 minutes to get loaded.

When concern was voiced about this, the answer would generally ollow the

lines that it did not aect his bottom line so why be concerned about it.

The same held true with the route collection vehicles; they could not

understand why that should be their concern. The truth is that every aspect othe process should and does matter. Reducing the time a transer is on the site to

be loaded will reduce the total time required to complete a cycle to and rom the

landfll, and should equate to lower cost per ton or that transportation cost. The

same is true or the route vehicles delivering the materials to the site. I a vehicle

is an external or third-party customer, every minute matters to that customer.

The aster and easier the truck can arrive, scale, tip and leave, the aster the truck

can be back out on the road being productive. The point o this is that every

aspect and every such example is part o right sizing, not just getting a building

that is big enough without being too big.

Industry Experience: Critical Right Sizing Factors andDesign Considerations

Lets begin by discussing right sizing as it relates to our experience withthe private sector. Think about it, what actors are needed to drive the sizing

question? Consider:

What is your expected daily volume and what is the peak volume you will

need to process during your peak periods?

How many vehicles per hour do you need to manage through the facility

daily, and during your peak periods?

How much storage capacity is needed for those emergency situations?

(landfll temporary shutdown or severe weather conditions)

How much oor space is needed for tipping?

What is the potential for growth and what is the timeline that you might

need that expansion?

Will you ever need to accommodate recycling? (trans load, simple sort or

ull sorting)

Future environmental regulationsbe proactive and plan for future

regulatory changes.

These are just a ew o the acts gathered to determine the designrequirements, commonly reerred to as the basis o design or program

needs (acts uncovered during the interview process and needs assessment

items such as those previously listed). These are the common items debated

during most every initial design discussion. Typically, the discussions revolve

around these and many more questions ollowing that line

o thinking, which are really just meant to establish basic

parameters such as size and what type o loading bay will

be used or the acility. This leads to the other piece o

the equationwhat are the real questions o right sizing?

Operational efciency questions include:

1. How efcient will the facility be for accepting and

receiving materials?

2. How fast will we be able to load out transfer

trailers and empty the building?

3. How can I limit the exposure to revenue loss

through unauthorized tipping, bypassing scales,

internal raud and thet?

4. How do I operate the facility safely and still limit

the labor and operating expenses?5. How do I control my ongoing operational cost?

Cost of operations questions include:

1. Can our design incorporate building eatures

that reduce annual repairs, reduce downtime and

improve our proftability?

2. Can I attract more volume by being customer

riendly and by providing the best chance or a quick

turn through the acility with short or no wait times?

3. Can I negotiate lower transportation costs to the

landfll because o our efciencies?

Knowing the answers to these questions is critical to the entire process. This

process needs to be managed with operational understandings and considerations

leading the way. Eective designs and site layouts are the result o planning

driven rom real waste industry experience. Too oten, the engineer has years

o experience with drawings and conceptual layout but limited, i any, real

time spent observing day-to-day operations. What were reerring to is the

intangible understanding o a transer station that a designer or consultant

has to have. It is that innate ability to know how to gauge and estimate the

amount o time required to get a route truck on and o the property, and createa design that ensures it will be 10 to 20 minutes instead o 40 minutes. It is

the dierence between attracting a customer and additional volume that would

otherwise go to a competitor. This experience is the dierence between a design

that can get approved and a design that works.

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Even though this facility has the same amount of bays as the 1500 TPD facility, this facility is deeper to accommodate morestorage and a higher throughput and also has an indoor tarping facility for the over-the-road trucks.

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Facility Right Sizing and DesignCost Factors and Considerations

The key question is: What will my cost per ton be to process materials

through this acility? To know the complete answer, you need to be able to

become more than just a site planner or a designer; you have to also be able to

include the operational cost impacts o a design to make it a complete package.

What exactly does this mean and what actors should be considered in that

evaluation? Lets start with the basic questions:

Cost

1. Land

2. Inrastructure

3. Site improvement4. Building

5. Other specialized equipment (pit scales, loader arm scales, in/out

bound scales, unattended scale sotware, security cameras and thet

control measures)

The preceding is the typical inormation that is primarily used or considered.

But that is only looking at a small portion o the real costs that that should

weigh into right sizing. Now lets take a quick look at some o the additional

inormation that is also integral to the proper considerations:

Ongoing expenses (building repairs and expenses over a predetermined

building lie)

1. Miscellaneous building repairs, such as scales, OH doors, wall siding,

etc.

2. Floor repairs and replacements

Equipment (loaders and other equipment)

1. Purchase price

2. Operating cost/hour with maintenance

Stafng (equipment operators, spotters and cleanup, scale operators,

managers)

Other expenses1. Real estate taxes

2. Utilities

3. Lease payments

4. Loan amortization

As you read through the list above, probably none o these surprised you;

in act, you may have been thinking how obvious they all are. Obvious or not,

these are rarely considered or given the real weight that they deserve. Each

individual project requires attention to oten signifcantly dierent criteria to

determine which actors will yield the lowest cost per ton or a given project.

Transfer Station Design Facility ExamplesThe greater the volume o a acility, the lower the impact o mistakes and

poor planning. A large volume acility can help you hide a multitude o

mistakes. The frst example looks at a low volume acility that will exaggerate

the impact. Since the purpose o this example is to illustrate how important

even small issues can play into the larger picture, lets work through just a

ew issues o a small volume acility. For the sake o providing a meaningul

example, consider a small volume transer station using this basic inormation:

Average daily volume o 200 to 250 tons per day

Annual volume o 64,350 tons using an average volume o 225 and

286 operating days

Typically, or small

projects the ocus may

ollow a ew key costitems:

The total cost of

the physical facility.

For instance, a

total acility cost o

$2,000,000 would

be an annual cost o

$135,000 amortized

at 5 percent over 25years. Taking that

annual cost would

equal a capitalized

cost o $2.10/ton.

Now, lets look at

what the impact

would be i the project

was $2,500,000. This

would change the

annual amortized costto $168,934 or $2.63 per ton.

Labor. Rather than try to defne what labor you would need, lets look at the

impact o an extra employee. Lets assume one o the more expensive options,

and you add one extra loader operator. For the sake o discussion, assume 2,000

total hours and that you would also be adding the cost o an additional loader

with operational cost and maintenance. The cost or this will vary drastically

all around the county based on local labor rates and other geographical actors.

For our purpose, lets say a total operating cost o $70 per hour (labor and

equipment). Extend that out to the annual cost and you now have to actor inan additional $140,000 or another $2.18/ton.

Next, lets use a 700 ton per day acility as an example, and an issue that may

be critical to that acility:

At 700 tons, the facility needs to manage 30 outbound loads of material

based on a 24-ton legal load. Lets assume an operating time o 12 hours. Based

on this example, two to three loads per hour need to be loaded. For the periods

in the day where you are dealing with the high volume time slots, that is still

a very manageable 20 minutes per load.

However, if we dig deeper into this and what potential problems there might

be, consider how important having a properly working and accurate pit scale is to

this scenario. At this volume what would the impact be i we were only loading

each transer trailer with 21 tons? That would pose several problems:

First you would need to load out 33 or 34 trailers

Second, and most importantly, this would mean you are increasing your

transportation cost by 13 percent

Lets put this into a value that we can all understand. Assume your

transportation cost was $288 per load (24 tons @ $12 per ton with 24 tons

per load guaranteed). You now will be spending an additional $864 per day

or transportation costs or$1.23 more per ton that comes right o the bottomline. Doesnt sound like much? $1.23 per ton or 286 days and 25 years is

$6,156,150 over the 25-year lie ($246,264 annually).


Effective designs and site layouts are the result of planning drivenfrom real waste industry experience.

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Although the previous costs are not real, nor are they based on any real

project, the issues they represent are accurate and to the point o defning what

we are talking about when we discuss right sizing.

No One Size Fits AllIn closing, when we are asked What size should a acility be to process 300

tons per day?, the real answer is there is no one answer that fts every situation

or specifc volume. There are o-the-shelves plans that can be used once you

get to a point o having worked through all o the other questions, but there

may be our options or a size based on the total package o needs. The real

science is in establishing what the total package needs in order to yield the best

result or each individual project or client.At the end o the day, it is a similar comparison to a dating service. Sounds

strange right? Well think about it, you need to know what is right or you,

what needs you have, what your long term goals are, what you are willing to

invest and what you are looking to get out o it. Even though this may sound

like an odd analogy, it is all about compatibility, having a transer station that

is designed to be totally compatible with your needs. So what is right sizing? It

is fnding the right ft or you, selecting the building and site layout that best

works oryouroperation, and custom designing it to your needs. | WA

Ray Eriks and Cambridge Construction (Grifth, IN) have been working with the

waste industry for 18 years. During that time, they have completed more than 100 solid

waste projects which consist of design/build projects, transfer station repairs and facility

upgrades and modications for facilities such as transfer stations, hauling companies, ofce

buildings, MRFs, waste water treatment plants and container repair facilities. Cambridge

has been studying the operations and changes within the waste industry extensively during

this time and continues to improve our design/build solutions to meet the dynamic needs of

the solid waste industry. Ray can be reached at (866) 972-1155, ext. 222, via e-mail

[email protected] or visit the Web site at www.TransferStations.com

or blog at www.ConstructionandWaste.com.

Bob Wallace , MBA, is a Principal and Vice President of Client Solutions for

WIH Resource Group (Phoenix, AZ), providing diversied services and extensive

experience to clients in both the private and public sectors. Bob has more than 25

years of experience in solid waste and recycling management, transportation/

logistics operations, eet management, alternative vehicle fuel solutions (CNG, LNG, Biodiesels, etc.), WastebyRail program management, recycling/solid waste

program planning and development. Bob has expertise in the areas of solid waste and

recycling collection routing and route auditing, disposal and transportation rate and

contract negotiations, and strategic business planning. He has extensive experience in

conducting both solid waste collections and transfer station operational performance

assessments OPAs (a business improvement process). Bob previously served as a board

member for the Arizona Chapter of SWANA and has served on the National Solid

Waste Rate Committee for the American Public Works Association. He is also a

former board member of the California Refuse and Recycling Associations Global

Recycling Council. Bob can be reached at (480) 241-9994, via e-mail at bwallace@

wihresourcegroup.com or visit www.wihrg.com.

Call 1 800 463-6638 or see what our customers sayabout the Expert(t) 2000on www.labriegroup.com

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2010 Waste Advantage Magazine, All Rights Reserved.Reprinted from Waste Advantage Magazine.Contents cannot be reprinted without permission from the publisher.

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