TY - JOUR
T1 - Comparing hot and cold loading in an integrated biomass recovery operation
AU - Kizha, Anil Raj
AU - Han, Han Sup
AU - Anderson, Nathaniel
AU - Koirala, Anil
AU - Louis, Libin T.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), Biomass Research and Development Initiative under Grant 2010-05325 and AFRI Grant 2013-68005-21298 under the Bioenergy Alliance Network of the Rockies; and the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (McIntire-Stennis project) through the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station under Grant ME041909. We would like to express our gratitude to Ethan Hill (Humboldt State University, CA) for assisting in data entry. Our appreciation goes to Peter Wakeland, Darren Cagley (Coquille Indian Tribe, OR) and Plikkat logging Inc. (Camas Valley, OR) for their cooperation on the operational aspect of the study.
Funding Information:
Funding: This research was funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), Biomass Research and Development Initiative under Grant 2010-05325 and AFRI Grant 2013-68005-21298 under the Bioenergy Alliance Network of the Rockies; and the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (McIntire-Stennis project) through the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station under Grant ME041909.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the authors.
PY - 2020/4/1
Y1 - 2020/4/1
N2 - The balance of production activities at the landing is pivotal to the success of any forest harvesting operation and has a direct impact on the cost and efficiency of the enterprise. The primary objective of this study was to understand the operational characteristics of the loader in a hot operation (handling both sawlog and biomass components concurrently) and cold operation (handling biomass and sawlogs separately) for harvesting sawlogs and biomass. Systematic work sampling techniques were employed to obtain "snapshots" of the loader activities for a cable logging operation, including the interaction of the loader with other operational phases and delay time for both hot and cold configurations. The results show that for hot loading at the landing, the yarder was the most utilized machine (85%), and was the bottleneck of the operation, followed by the loader (70%). In the hot loading configuration, 39% of operational delay during truck loading was caused by the loader and was predominantly due to movement of the loader within or between the landings. This was followed by the yarder (19%, due to rigging activities) and the chaser (15%, to maintain the crews' safety). In the cold loading configuration, delays due to the unavailability of roll-off bins constituted up to 77% of the operational delay. This suggests that the number of bins and trucks hauling biomass has a crucial role in the overall efficiency of the biomass harvesting system, and should be well balanced with loading capacity. Additionally, the choice of hot or cold biomass loading operations is highly dependent on the site and operating conditions.
AB - The balance of production activities at the landing is pivotal to the success of any forest harvesting operation and has a direct impact on the cost and efficiency of the enterprise. The primary objective of this study was to understand the operational characteristics of the loader in a hot operation (handling both sawlog and biomass components concurrently) and cold operation (handling biomass and sawlogs separately) for harvesting sawlogs and biomass. Systematic work sampling techniques were employed to obtain "snapshots" of the loader activities for a cable logging operation, including the interaction of the loader with other operational phases and delay time for both hot and cold configurations. The results show that for hot loading at the landing, the yarder was the most utilized machine (85%), and was the bottleneck of the operation, followed by the loader (70%). In the hot loading configuration, 39% of operational delay during truck loading was caused by the loader and was predominantly due to movement of the loader within or between the landings. This was followed by the yarder (19%, due to rigging activities) and the chaser (15%, to maintain the crews' safety). In the cold loading configuration, delays due to the unavailability of roll-off bins constituted up to 77% of the operational delay. This suggests that the number of bins and trucks hauling biomass has a crucial role in the overall efficiency of the biomass harvesting system, and should be well balanced with loading capacity. Additionally, the choice of hot or cold biomass loading operations is highly dependent on the site and operating conditions.
KW - Forest operations
KW - Forest residue recovery
KW - Integrated harvesting
KW - Operational delays
KW - Woody biomass utilization
KW - Work sampling techniques
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85086755546&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/F11040385
DO - 10.3390/F11040385
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85086755546
SN - 1999-4907
VL - 11
JO - Forests
JF - Forests
IS - 4
M1 - 385
ER -