Evaluation of total time consumption in harvester technology deployment in conditions of the forest sector of the Czech Republic

Abstract

Cut-to-length technology represents a modern forest logging technology characterized by high performance, efficiency, productivity and work safety. At the same time it is friendly to forest ecosystems. Both acquisition and operating costs of harvester units are high, which requires their year-round utilization. The aim of this paper was to analyse shift time consumptions and thus analyse the common harvester and forwarder work shift. In 2015-2016 we collected time snapshots of harvesters and forwarders of various performance categories and from different production conditions throughout the Czech Republic. Consequently the analysis of work shift time with respect to unit, batch and shift times was conducted. The average duration of a harvester's work shift was 623 min, out of which operational time amounted to 73.6%. In forwarders the average shift took 520 min, with operational time representing 71.2%. In the course of the analysis and statistical data processing, all the remaining shift times which constitute an average harvester and forwarder work shift were quantified in detail. Work shift utilization ranged from 86.1 to 95.3%.