Performance, Cost, and Operational Ranges of New and Existing Forest Operations Systems
Every prescription for a forest management activity establishes a set of functional requirements for potential operations. These requirements may include ability to handle certain size material, process certain products, operate on particular slopes, etc. The land manager and contractor must find the “best” match between prescription requirements and system capabilities. What determines “best” is a wide range of tangible and intangible values including factors such as operating cost, labor content, timing and seasonal operability, and social acceptability. Thus, selection of appropriate systems requires extensive information on how current operations perform in new prescriptions, as well as how new technologies may perform. Performance will be measured in terms of factors such as production, energy consumption, labor input, and capitalization.
Some studies may be conducted on a particular machine, while other studies must be conducted with a systems approach to examine interactions among various system functions, overall system performance, and total costs. For example, the interaction between harvesting and site preparation is complex and significant. Site prep must often mitigate the effects of harvesting treatments while creating suitable planting conditions, yet the costs of site prep are seldom allocated back to harvesting.
Fiber recovery efficiency of various forest operations is becoming more important. Increasing demands for products from the southern forest are creating new markets. Merchandizing for value is becoming a real possibility with implications for improving the feasibility of intermediate stand treatments. Research needs to be conducted to determine the optimal place to conduct merchandizing with impacts on nutrient cycling of residues and value recovery. Short rotation hardwoods are a growing source of fiber and energy. These production systems will be studied for their efficiency, cost, and attainment of biological and environmental objectives.
Transportation from woods to processing facility represents nearly half the delivered cost of fiber for forest products. Transportation cost is also very susceptible to variations in energy cost. Optimizing the efficiency of forest product transportation can have significant advantages for industry and society. Determining root causes of transportation delays, developing more efficient scheduling and dispatching methodologies, maximizing merchandizing in the woods, are all potential lines of investigation.
Forest operations face unique demands when prescriptions are applied to small tracts or low-volume stands. In these applications, overhead costs such as moving and downtime become prohibitive. Small‑scale forest operations are promoted as alternatives to conventional forest equipment, particularly for uneven‑aged management systems. Yet these machines typically have low production rates, limited capacities, and prime movers that are not purpose‑built for forest use. Most of the available equipment is also designed for small, uniform softwoods (plantation forestry). Research is needed to evaluate and demonstrate equipment capabilities in uneven‑aged applications and mixed stands that will be typical of southern forest management on the vast acreages of NIPF landowners.
Finally, forest operations are business enterprises that employ people. People control the machines, make decisions, and get injured. Forest work is some of the most hazardous industrial work in the U.S. Manual operations, such as many proposed forest health restoration and stewardship activities, are the most hazardous. Research needs to examine issues of operator training, safety behavior and performance, motivation, personnel protection standards, and the total costs of labor in forest management.
Current Projects:
Performance of a Tigercat 726 B Feller-Buncher in a Loblolly Pine Plantation. John Klepac-USDA Forest Service
Shovel Logging in the Gulf Coastal Plain. John Klepac-USDA Forest Service
Performance of a Small-scale Harvester. Bob Rummer-USDA Forest Service
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