Deriving Forest Harvesting Machine Productivity from Positional Data

Automated production study systems will provide researchers a valuable tool for developing cost and impact models of forest operations under a wide range of conditions, making the development of true planning tools for tailoring logging systems to a particular site a reality. An automated time study system for skidders was developed, and in this study application of the system was compared to ciock measurements cn two skidders, Results showed that the system worked well in both gross and elemental time study, but that there were unexplained differences in some time elements, especially grappling times. Application of the system was somewhat complicated, and required knowledge of the site that could not be obtained before logging began, making the automated system more useful as a post-processing, rather than a rea!time, monitoring tool.