According to Caterpillar:

            Slot dozing increases a bulldozer's production by 20%

Hold that thought...

At the average landfill:

A bulldozer costs:                  $600,000     ...or $140/hour

           These costs may be true, but alone they are meaningless...

Based on our research:

The average dozer works 8 hours and makes approximately 135 pushes every day.

8 hours x $140 ÷ 135 pushes = $8³⁰ per push

As a result, each push costs approximately:         $8

Psychologically, here's what happens:

When a load of trash is dumped, the operator pushes it to the face (...costs $8). This is a full, production push.  Then the operator returns and waits for the next load.  If the next load has not yet arrived, the operator looks for something else to do, mistakenly believing that keeping busy equates to productivity.  Afraid of appearing lazy, he/she makes more pushes (...each costing $8) to clean up material spilled from the previous push.  On average an operator makes 2 cleanup pushes for every production push.

Production pushes save time and money:

But what if the operator focused only on full production loads ...and ignored the cleanup until the end of the day?  Overall, he/she would make fewer pushes ...and the trash spilled along the push path(s) would effectively form a slot, increasing production by 20%.

One landfill reduced from 8 dozer hours per day to 2½ ...and saved over $700 per day!