When using multi-operation machines on felling cuttings, it is very important to combine two conditions: high-quality cutting and efficient use of machinery.
To achieve this, it is necessary, on the one hand, to establish the correct motivation of harvester operators, on which the quality of cuttings depends directly, and on the other hand, the correct motivation of the managers of the leshozes on which the competent, efficient and durable work of such expensive equipment as a harvester depends.
Motivation of harvester operators on felling grounds
When carrying out cuttings of forest care, the most important condition is their quality. Otherwise, instead of the expected improvement in the state of the plantation, it is possible to obtain a reverse effect, which will not be possible to correct later. This is the most relevant for the proper selection of trees for logging. It is here that irreparable mistakes can be made. In cases where trees intended for cutting are previously assigned by a specialist on the basis of silvicultural requirements, they are usually marked, and there should be no problems with the quality of thinning. But when the trees to the cabin are not pre-marked and the decision which specific tree to remove from the stand is taken by the harvester operator, then the quality of thinning, and consequently the future plantation, directly depends on it.
Of course, to make the right decision, performers need to be moved. There can be several ways in this direction: from strict control over each stump and the corresponding material punishments to the creation of such payment conditions that would stimulate the harvester operator to perform cutting operations only on the basis of silvicultural requirements.
The method of strict control of operators for many years proved its inconsistency. It is very expensive and ineffective. This method is more effective for contractors. For harvester operators, it is best to create such conditions when it will be profitable for them to make quality cuttings. This means that when selecting trees in the cabin, there would not be a chase for the notorious "cubes", and trees, straggly in growth, damaged, sick, deadly, etc., would be selected first. This can be easily achieved by setting tasks development and pricing) not for harvested cubic meters, but for the number of dumped and developed trees. The contractor should be only interested in the maximum number of harvested trees, and cubic meters will appear automatically, depending on the volume of the whip. At the same time, first of all, those trees that should be removed from the plantation during the cutting operations for silvicultural reasons will be cut down. Moreover, the harvester operator will also be interested in cutting the maximum permissible intensity, which is also very important for both the operator and the leshoz.
There may be a question about the organization of accounting for the number of harvested trees. There are no special difficulties here. The number of harvested trees can be taken into account in two ways, which are supplemented and refined by each other. Firstly, these data automatically appear in the computer of any harvester and no additional effort is required to obtain them. Secondly, the foreman of the forest can, for necessity, lay down permanent radius sites for counting harvested trees. This is a simple and easy work, all understandable, not requiring much time, any complicated measurements and calculations. It will be needed mainly for monitoring in case of doubt. Accounting for harvested cubic meters of all have long been established. Thus, dividing the volume of harvested wood by the number of harvested trees, we get the average volume of the whip, and dividing the volume of harvested wood by the area passed by the felling, we obtain the intensity of cutting in cubic meters. Everything is very simple.
In this case, the interests of the harvester and silvicultural operator will completely coincide, and we will be able to obtain quality cuttings.
It is also very important to establish trust relations with harvester operators in the part of standardizing their work. The specificity of their work is that the performance of operators can vary significantly. Therefore, after carrying out the normalization, it is important to try to avoid revising the norms of development in the direction of tightening them, due to the fact that some operators will overfulfill them. The more efficiently the operators work (and this is possible only when they are very interested), the higher the efficiency of the harvesters' harvesting operations will be.
Motivation of leshoz managers when using harvesters on felling grounds
If to control the efficiency of harvester's work on harvesting tasks, the leshozes should be brought in harvested cubic meters, by analogy with the main logging, this can lead to the fact that the leshozes will not always use harvester in those cuttings in which they are the most need and for which these harvesters are intended. And on those where it is easier to catch up with the volume. So, often instead of costly early thinning with a small amount of whip (0.05-0.12) some leshozes prefer to cut through cuttings, or continuous sanitary felling, or fire breaks, where the average volume of the whip sometimes reaches 0.18-0.20 m3. On the one hand, the most labor-intensive work remains at the share of manual harvesting, and on the other hand, machines often work at the maximum diameters, which can not but affect their durability and, consequently, their economic efficiency. It is most advisable to create conditions when the leshoz plans to work as harvesters on felling cuttings only on the basis of the need to conduct them taking into account the materials of the forest inventory and the finalized plans and under normal, and not the maximum, load on the machines. For example, Vimek harvesters can be used on almost all types of fellings (from clarifications to cut-through cuttings), but the result in cubic meters on different types of cuttings can differ very significantly.
Thus, it is proposed to evaluate the efficiency of harvesters' work in the felling areas not in the number of harvested cubic meters, but in the number of production rates that have been fulfilled, taking into account the fact that two operators must work on each harvester. Then the leshoz will be equally profitable to work on any type of logging and regardless of the average size of the whip. Only the work that is most in demand by the leshoz will be carried out. And the task of the management of the leshoz is to ensure that the harvester has minimal downtimes, minimal losses on the hauls and maximum productivity in the most varied areas of cuttings.
As a result, if the motivation of the harvester operators and the motivation of the leshoz managers are properly oriented, then it is possible to obtain exactly the result for which the purchase of these machines was made - to get high-quality forests at minimal cost.
Sergey Rodionov