Earth moving machines such as front wheel loaders are used generally to transfer bulk material from a stock pile onto transport vehicles such as trucks or railroad cars.  In such vehicle loading applications, the loader performs a series of functions, including digging, racking back the bucket to maintain the load, traveling to a dump site or transport vehicle while raising the bucket, dumping the load from a raised position and traveling with an empty bucket back to the original stock pile. 
A method and apparatus for determining the work cycle of a machine is needed to increase productivity and efficiency of the machine.  The ability to determine the work cycle time by an automated on-board system is needed to integrate with other machine monitoring systems in order to provide the operator of the machine important information regarding the efficiency and progress of the machine. 
The present invention is directed to overcome one or more of the problems set forth above.