Command Alkon, the Leading Supplier Collaboration Platform for Construction’s Heavy Work, has recently won the 2019 Supply & Demand Chain Executive Green Supply Chain Award. Command Alkon was selected for a variety of solutions that the company provides that help businesses meet their sustainability goals, including COMMANDoptimize, an algorithmic-based solution for ready mix concrete dispatch. COMMANDoptimize was selected to participate based upon the outstanding success it has shown in eliminating carbon emissions by reducing non-productive time in ready mix concrete fleets.
To understand the direct correlation between reducing truck time and carbon emissions, we wanted to share the math behind the submission and how producers are achieving these reductions. The first element in the calculations is related to the production of carbon emissions from the diesel fuel expended. According to the EPA, one gallon of diesel fuel expended by a ready mix concrete truck will produce just over 22 pounds of carbon emissions.1
According to the NRMCA’s Fleet Benchmarking Survey, the average ready mix concrete truck expends just under 3 gallons per hour when in operation. Combining those two values together, the average ready mix concrete truck will produce approximately 66 pounds of carbon emissions each hour that it is in operation (detailed math: 22.23 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon multiplied by 2.97 gallons of diesel fuel consumed per hour equals 66.02 pounds per hour).
Optimization’s role in reducing the carbon emissions comes from the increased efficiencies in the fleet that allow producers to deliver materials using fewer hours and resources. The simplest explanation of how this is achieved is through the reduction of time spent in non-productive tasks (startup, shutdown, waiting time on job or at plant, etc.). Ultimately, this leads to less time being expended to deliver materials and sometimes allowing a smaller fleet to be used to deliver the same quantity of materials.
Using performance data from current Optimization customers, we demonstrated this improvement by documenting the reduced driver time required to deliver one yard of concrete. The data showed that the average driver before Optimization expended 0.36 hours (21.6 minutes) per yard delivered. After Optimization, the average driver expended 0.28 hours (16.8 minutes) per yard delivered. Thus, the net result was a reduction of almost 5 minutes per yard which equaled a reduction of 5.28 pounds of carbon emissions for each yard delivered. NOTE: the data showed that the reduction in time was primarily from a reduction in time spent in those non-productive tasks.
Extrapolating that reduction in carbon emissions across some conservative estimates of a ready mix driver that averages 625 loads per year with an average load size of 8 yards per ticket would equal a reduction of 26,400 pounds of carbon emissions annually per driver. For a 75 truck fleet, the savings easily eclipse over 2 million pounds of carbon emissions with larger fleets seeing even greater savings.
Click here for more information on COMMANDoptimize. If you are interested in exercising green business practices and think that your operation can benefit from Optimization, schedule a 15-minute call with one of our representatives.
