Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

In an attempt to prevent ground damage and to reduce harvesting costs, StoraEnso's districts Värmbodal and Fryken, selected a number of final felling areas where the base roads have been marked by planners in the districts. The parties involved in the experiment are mainly planners, harvester operators and forwarder operators. The purpose of this paper is to determine the findings of this trial and to find cost savings or lost revenue. This has been done with a sample of interviews from the involved parties who logged the chosen felling areas. Literature about the interview process has been used to facilitate data collection, interpretation and analysis of the material.
If we look at profitability based on assumed income and expenditure, revenue per MWh would be 63 SEK. The amount of slash that is used for a 100 meter base road equates to slash removal of 0,17 ha. This would result in a loss of revenue to the company, but probably a necessity to reduce the ground damage.
Most machine operators thought, for a long time, that they had suggested the need for selected base roads. Operators also believe that the selected base roads enhance the performance of harvesters and forwarders. Another point they wanted to highlight is that brushing is done in parts where it is needed, therefore the whole base road is not always brushed resulting in the assessment being very individual.
If the marked mainroads becomes a routine of planning, this can lead to reduced risk of ground damage, but it also requires a good flow of information between district offices and machine chains to achieve a good result. The loss of revenue may be calculated as a cost of harvesting in order to really emphasize that the district will include marked base roads and to brush the roads up as far as possible. The important thing is still that the machine operators react when there is a risk of ground damage, because the planning is sometimes done a long time in advance and during different climatic conditions. The success factor for good results consists in awareness, information and communication but not least, a vision for how the results of a final felling should look like.