Abstract
To improve production efficiency and harvesting economics some forest companies are looking at extended hours of use for forest machinery, which may include longer shift lengths, multiple shifts per day, and more harvesting days per week. A review of the literature provides mixed signals on the costs and benefits of extending work hours. A long-term data base, which contained over 30 000 machine day records and was maintained by a Chilean forest company, was used to evaluate the effects of three types of extended work schedules (beyond a 9 hour work day) on the productivity of two types of harvesting operations; mechanised processing of Pinus radiata D. Don (radiata pine) stems into logs and mechanised harvesting of eucalypt (Eucalyptus globulus Labill and E. nitens H. Deane and Maiden) trees. Production increased as working hours increased. However, average hourly productivity fell by 9 to 30% as the working day length for equipment was extended from 9 to 18 hours. A range of factors, some interacting, were found to affect the level of decrease. These factors included type of work schedule, type of operation, season, tree species, and tree size. Extending working hours beyond 9 hours per day did not result in equivalent increases in production for mechanized harvesting operations in Chile. Further research is needed on the overall economics of working extended hours.
Highlights
To improve production efficiency and harvesting economics some forest companies are looking at extended hours of use for forest machinery, which may include longer shift lengths, multiple shifts per day, and more harvesting days per week
We report on the effects of extended working hours on the productivity of two types of harvesting operations undertaken by a Chilean forest company
The magnitude of the drop in productivity differs between processors and harvesters
Summary
To improve production efficiency and harvesting economics some forest companies are looking at extended hours of use for forest machinery, which may include longer shift lengths, multiple shifts per day, and more harvesting days per week. Over the last three decades extended working hours – multiple shifts in particular – have been tried and failed in some parts of the world (e.g. New Zealand and south eastern USA) but in other parts (e.g. Scandinavia, Canada and parts of the north eastern USA) have been used for many years to increase production (Terlesk and Walker 1982, Mitchell 2008). In some countries, such as Australia (Nicholls et al 2004), Sweden (Andersson 1999), Brazil Meeting the growing demand for improved monetary returns, increasing production efficiency and reducing obsolescence of forestry equipment are reasons given for this renewed interest (Nicholls 2003, Lebel et al 2010)
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