Borz Stelian Alexandru, PhD.

Biomass for energy production and other bioproducts may be procured from various sources including willow short-rotation coppice (WSRC). Management of WSRCs involves several operations, including harvesting, which accounts for the greatest cost share and, if conducted motor-manually, it can expose the workers to noise, uncomfortable work postures and high cardiovascular loads. In this study, we evaluated the productivity, physical strain, exposure to noise, and postural risk index of workers operating in motor-manual felling of WSRC using a set of automatic dataloggers. Productivity of felling operations was rated at 0.07 ha/h, which is in line with the results reported by other studies. Cardiovascular load was rated at cca. 35% of the HRR, indicating a medium to heavy work experienced by the feller, with a greater contribution of tasks involving movement. Exposure to noise (LEX,8h = 95.19) exceeded the limit value set by the European legislation (87 dBA) and it could increase as a function of the engine utilization rate, which was 68% in this study, advocating for mandatory wearing of protective equipment. Postural risk index was evaluated at 191.11% for the worker handling the brush cutter and at 192.02% for the manual assistant indicating rather reduced risks, but also the need to evaluate how the dynamic work of the upper limbs would affect the workers’ health. While this work stands for a preliminary case study, the procedures described may be successfully used to easily collect long-term data in such operations.

Implementation of process management in the forest supply chains has a great potential for organizational and managerial improvement, at least by resource saving. Nevertheless, techniques of process management have been scarcely used to improve the forest supply chains in many parts of the world. In this study, for both Romanian state and private forests, the processes of the timber supply chain – from the harvest site to the forest-based industry plant – are mapped and analyzed. The main objectives of this work were to identify process optimization potentials and to redesign processes in order to improve the performance of the Romanian timber supply chain. Results show that particularly inter-organizational processes offer great saving potentials, mainly due to the existing multi-level hierarchy and multi-level control obligations. Therefore, introducing a web-based platform to enhance a collaborative workflow can considerably decrease the time needed for providing harvest sites or logs to customers via auctions. Further process optimization can be reached by the empowerment of lower level hierarchies facilitating the reduction of hierarchy levels of involved state organizations

The forestry and timber industry are strong sectors in the economies of European countries. The current trend of introducing forestry management that respects the various functions of the forest has created new challenges. However, forestry itself, as well as those challenges, varies in different regions in Europe. The aim of this review paper was to describe forest resources and their potential as well to define challenges in forestry and forest engineering in regions of East Europe. Case studies were selected from four countries: Croatia, Latvia, Poland and Romania. The background data and information of the forest-based sector included: forest resources and forest productivity, forest utilisation, development of forest operations and difficulties in forest management. In the analysed countries, state-owned forestry was represented by at least 45%. Forestry is an important sector in all four countries and future challenges are observed in forest management and forest engineering mainly including: an increase in timber resources, improvement in species composition for better productivity and the introduction of effective mechanised forest operations in pre-commercial thinning. Further improvement of harvester heads is expected for the harvesting of broadleaved species and for young stands. Issues linked to the environment were also recognised as challenging factors: mild winters make it difficult to use CTL technology on wet and sensitive sites. Additionally, dry seasons have a high impact on forest fire frequency, but this can be controlled by effective monitoring systems. Improvement in IT systems used in forest operations should limit the carbon footprint by optimising transport, machine use and limiting fuel use. Finally, innovations are recognised as key issues in the improvement of forest management and forest engineering; therefore, special budgets have been allocated to support science and development.

Forwarding technology is well established in use around the world but, at the same time, forwarders are expensive machines that require a good planning to ensure the sustainability of operations. In addition, forwarder market is characterized by a limited pool of customers, therefore innovation attempts may be limited compared to other product development industries. Since the steps towards a full automation of operations are still at their beginning, improvements of forwarder machines may rest in developing and integrating components that could contribute to an increased effectiveness. To respond to such challenges, the Forwarder2020 project developed innovative components that were integrated in a number of forwarder prototypes based on a market pull approach that resulted in a flexible adaptation to customer requirements and work environments. Since one of the typical work environments was that of low access forests, some components (i.e. suspended cabin and transmission system) were engineered to enable faster and safer operations and to economize fuel. As a common validation step is that of bringing field evidence on the performance improvement, this study evaluated the operational speed, productivity and fuel consumption of a forwarder prototype in conditions of a steep-terrain low-access forest. The main findings were very promising as the prototype was able to operate at significantly increased speeds and the fuel savings were evident. For an average forwarding distance of about 1.5 km, net productivity and efficiency rates were estimated at 14.4 m3/h and 0.07 h/m3, respectively. They were related to the availability of wood, and further improvement of such figures is possible by a better organization of tree felling and processing. Operational speed was affected by the condition of skid roads used for forwarding, which were harsh. During the transportation tasks developed on roads typical for forwarding, the machine was able to sustain average speeds estimated at 8 km/h. As a matter of fact, in such tasks, the dominant operational speed (almost in 100% of the cases) was higher than 5 km/h irrespective of the road condition. Hourly fuel consumption was estimated based on the time in which the engine was working and it amounted to 17.1 l/h. More importantly, by considering the forwarded payload in terms of volume and mass, the unit fuel consumption was estimated to be 1.25 l/m3 and 1.47 l/t, respectively. These results bring evidence on the performance improvement by modular innovation. In fact, such solutions could answer the challenges related to the sustainability of forest operations in low access forests.

The aim of the study was to provide a comprehensive overview of global long-distance road transportation of industrial roundwood. The study focused on the maximum gross vehicle weight (GVW) limits allowed with different timber truck configurations, typical payloads in timber trucking, the road transportation share of the total industrial roundwood long-distance transportation volume, and the average long-distance transportation distances and costs of industrial roundwood. The study was carried out as a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire was sent to timber transportation logistics experts and research scientists in the 30 countries with the largest industrial roundwood removals in Europe, as well as selected major forestry countries in the world (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, Türkiye, the United States of America and Uruguay) in February 2022, and closed in May 2022. A total of 31 countries took part in the survey. The survey illustrated that timber trucking was the main long-distance transportation method of industrial roundwood in almost every country surveyed. Road transportation averaged 89% of the total industrial roundwood long-distance transportation volume. Timber truck configurations of 4 to 9 axles with GVW limits of around 30 tonnes to over 70 tonnes were most commonly used. The results indicated that higher GVW limits allowed significantly higher payloads in timber trucking, with the lowest payloads at less than 25 tonnes, and the highest payloads more than 45 tonnes. The average road transportation distance with industrial roundwood was 128 km, and the average long-distance transportation cost in timber trucking was €11.1 per tonne of timber transported. In the entire survey material, there was a direct relationship between transportation distance and transportation costs and an inverse relationship between maximum GVW limits and transportation costs. Consequently, in order to reduce transportation costs, it is essential to maximise payloads (within legal limits) and minimise haul distances. Several measures to increase cost- and energy-efficiency, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in road transportation logistics, are discussed in the paper. On the basis of the survey, it is recommended that up-to-date statistical data and novel research studies on the long-distance transportation of industrial roundwood be conducted in some countries in the future.

The Technodiversity project addresses technological diversity by gathering a common basis of technological knowledge and increasing the sensitivity for diversity in forest engineering. It aims to bring together and make generally available the existing knowledge in forest operations that is scattered across various European countries. It will serve as a bridge between different regions of Europe and generations of students, practitioners, scientists and academics. In this article, a small part of the e-learning module (https://technodiversity-moodle.ibe.cnr.it/) is presented in a glossary of some of the terms of forest operations.