An economic study of the technology of harvesting and transport systems used in clearfelling Acacia mearnsii, Eucalyptus grandis and Pinus patula.
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Date
1984
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Abstract
Objectives of this thesis are to project the description and
supply of Black labour in the forestry industry of southern Africa,
survey harvesting and transport systems used overseas and locally,
select and adapt a method to analyse and quantify local systems and
present the results of this research.
The next objective is to write a computer programme which uses
these results to estimate labour and machine requirements with their
respective production rates and give standard cost analyses. This
supplies the detail for system selection, daily management of harvesting
and transport operations and the basis for control by comparing projected
production rates and costs with historical data.
Although labour intensive systems are still being comployed, it
was found that costs and unavailability of Black labour has forced a
conversion to capital intensive systems. This trend is expected to
continue at an increasing rate.
Many European machines appear to have developed from forwarders
with various heads fitted to their cranes to perform different operations.
American equipment has tended to develop around the articulated
front-end loader. In South Africa, the locally invented three-wheel
loader has been adapted to fill a similar role. However, it
is premature to forecast the direction southern African forestry will
follow.
Of the possible work measurement techniques, the so-called stop
watch methods were selected as they proved to be the most accurate,
penetrating and rapid. Results were reproducible and highly significant
when regressed on the appropriate tree, terrain or work site
dimensions.
A survey of available computer simulation programmes revealed
that in their present form they were unsuited to southern African harvesting
and transport operations investigated. Consequently, the
writer wrote a programme in FORTRAN 77 which contains all results in
this thesis and analyses timber harvesting and transport. The programme,
named Techno-Economic Analysis of Logging (TEAL), supplies its
results in a form suitable for both field staff and senior management.
TEAL analyses have been found to compare closely with efficient operations.
Many of this thesis' data have been compiled into tables giving
piece work rates in simplified form. These are presented in appendices.
Description
Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1984.
Keywords
Forests and forestry--Economic aspects--South Africa., Forest management--South Africa., Logging--Economic aspects--South Africa., Forest machinery--South Africa., Theses--Agricultural economics.