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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24 WasteAdvantage Magazine May 2010
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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26 WasteAdvantage Magazine May 2010
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).
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Effective designs and site layouts are the result of planning drivenfrom real waste industry experience.
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30 WasteAdvantage Magazine May 2010
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.
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