Hey all. I'm doing some research about fuel consumption estimation during construction planning stage, and I would like to know if anyone has come across an industry standard, guideline or recommendation to estimate idle time, utilization factors or any kind of operational aspect affecting aggregate fuel usage. Thanks very much, best regards, Sebastian.
Idle time is a metric that is monitored I think on all the machines with telematics now. At least all the machines I've done inspections on in the last five years anyway. I've found over my career that there is no way to estimate it as it is a function of what the operator does. It is a huge concern now because of the fuel usage and life cycle reductions. When I last worked for a production company, we did everything we could to make operators let machines idle five to ten minutes after a cold start and the same when being shut down at the end of a shift. The unfortunate thing is there are always those with thick skulls that believe no one has a right to tell them how to run a machine so they are sent on to other employers when we were able to document the behavior. Now days, management can monitor machine idle times with a cell phone and some software. I've been on sites where a phone call came while I was doing an inspection and writing notes on a form in between operational tests.