Today I had a tech support question on Mass Haul that was worth capturing here.
The issue was that a user had computed the earthworks using the surface to surface volumes and the corridor earthworks report and the numbers matched well. Then they ran a balance line report on the corridor mass Haul and the volumes were off by 0.5million yd3 - naturally they asked why …
The user also noticed a couple of spots in the mass haul balance lines in plan view were not filled in and again questioned why that was and “were the issues related”.
The answer was yes they were related and that the issue was created because of their haul ranges. They had defined general haul ranges from 0 to 1000’ and 1000 to 2000’ and 2000 to 3000’ and 3000 to 4000’and 4000 to 5000’ and believed that they had it covered - what they missed was the blank balance line areas were haul distances in excess of 5000’.
The lesson here is that no matter what you think the max haul distance is, always add a catch all to the haul range list that in this case goes from 5000 to e.g. 200000 to make sure that you catch this missing volume - turns out that the one balancebline they missed was nearly half the volume for the job.
Kudos to the user for spotting the shortfall and asking the question - we are always here to help and advise you when you get stuck. Don’t leave that kind of quantity on the table. It also shows that cross checking your numbers is also a good practice - a big benefit of TBC is that there are normally 2 ways to do most things that can give you an independent check on your valuable numbers. Also read the reports that you generate and make sure that the numbers make sense.
Thanks for raising the question and good work on spotting the issue
Alan