Modeling Excavation Process Using Dynamic Modeling Approach

The dynamics of the excavation process affect the performance of resources involved in the operations. This is significant for the reasons: (1) most of excavation work requires costly resources such as excavators and trucks; (2) the overall performance of the process depends on the performance of such resources; and (3) there are intricate interdependencies among resources. In order to incorporate analysis of such dynamics in managing excavation operations, an approach based on dynamic process modeling and simulation is presented. This approach provides critical operational information for effective planning and control of the process, including the progress and corresponding schedule of the overall process and the efficiency of individual resources over time and at the completion that can be used to find a balanced combination of resources. To demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed approach focusing on excavation in building construction an application example is presented.