  We numerically investigate the approach to the stationary state in the
nonconservative Olami-Feder-Christensen (OFC) model for earthquakes. Starting
from initially random configurations, we monitor the average earthquake size in
different portions of the system as a function of time (the time is defined as
the input energy per site in the system). We find that the process of
self-organisation develops from the boundaries of the system and it is
controlled by a dynamical critical exponent z~1.3 that appears to be universal
over a range of dissipation levels of the local dynamics. We show moreover that
the transient time of the system $t_{tr}$ scales with system size L as $t_{tr}
\sim L^z$. We argue that the (non-trivial) scaling of the transient time in the
OFC model is associated to the establishment of long-range spatial correlations
in the steady state.
