Equipment Configuration Selection for Construction and Demolition Waste Infrastructure: Integrating Facility Location Models and Procurement Decisions

Abstract

Infrastructure managers responsible for construction and demolition waste (CDW) systems face a structural problem: facility locations are fixed through strategic planning before processing technologies are selected through procurement. By the time equipment decisions are made, the network is already committed. Technology choices made at that stage can render facilities underutilized, overspecified, or unable to meet recovery targets. This paper presents a decision-support framework that closes this gap by integrating commercially available equipment configurations directly into facility location planning. Each configuration is defined by processing capacity, material recovery efficiency, and capital cost structure. Applied to Qatar’s national CDW system, the framework reveals two capabilities absent from current practice: (1) feasibility screening, where 30% of uniform-technology mandate scenarios are mathematically infeasible under network capacity constraints, a failure mode undetectable without integrated planning; and (2) performance comparison, where the configuration-selection approach achieves 59.9% material recovery at QAR 845.6 million, outperforming all feasible mandates simultaneously on cost, recovery, and facility utilization. The framework transfers a methodology well established in operations research to CDW infrastructure procurement, enabling engineering managers to identify infeasible specifications, compare procurement alternatives, and translate recovery targets into tender-ready equipment specifications before capital is committed.