Watched a foreman in Flint count rebar by hand for 45 minutes and it hit me that my whole load plan was backwards | Construction Logistics - Chatter Central
Watched a foreman in Flint count rebar by hand for 45 minutes and it hit me that my whole load plan was backwards
For 6 years I loaded trucks nose to tail by weight, heaviest stuff up front, always figured that was just how it's done. Then a foreman at a job in Flint pulled out a chalk line and started marking every bundle's drop sequence while I watched him. He told me he'd waited on a truck twice that morning because the crew couldn't get to the decking buried behind the joists. I went back and rebuilt my plan by unload order instead, and that truck came off in under 90 minutes instead of half a day. Anyone else load by drop sequence, or am I the odd one for switching this late?
Read a thing from a logistics guy on a podcast a while back that said most delays at job sites come from the load order, not the drive time. He said a truck can sit for hours while guys dig for the right bundle, and that cost piles up way faster than fuel ever does. I tried it on a smaller scale with a landscaping job, put the pavers and base rock in by where they'd need them first, and the crew knocked it out in one afternoon. Foreman didn't even have to call me back for a second run. Feels like the weight-first rule is just what everyone gets taught and nobody questions.