Quality planning of silvicultural operations in eucalyptus in brazil

Abstract

To guarantee quality and competitiveness of products and processes, it is necessary to plan them from the initial stage and to integrate this planning into the production process. There are several processes involved in forest production, from planting to harvesting. These processes must be planned to ensure that the needs of the crop - one of the customers - are fulfilled. Therefore, this study aimed to plan the technical characteristics from silvicultural process to fulfill the needs of eucalyptus crop. Quality function deployment (QFD) was applied considering eucalyptus as a customer. The study was carried out on commercial plantations located in São Paulo State, Brazil. In total, 48 items related to the quality required by the customer - "What"- and 79 technical characteristics -"How"- were defined, resulting on 3,792 possible relationships used to translate "What" into "How". Out of this total, 874 presented relationships - "What" versus "How" - and based on the relationships, the technical characteristics were weighted according to their perceived importance. Forest productivity, seedling replacement and four other activities related to soil tillage were considered as the most important ones. Evaluations of "How" vs. "How" - resulted in 6,241 possible correlations, 252 out of which were positive or negative. These correlations can bring benefits when positive, but can also negatively influence the development of plantations. For implantation, soil clay content presented several correlations with other characteristics that could bring benefits, but also negative effects, such as less root penetration, depending on the soil moisture. To ensure that the needs of the eucalyptus and consequently of the industry are met, seedling replacement and four other technical characteristics related to soil preparation were considered as the most important for the silvicultural process.