Productivity and cost of industrial firewood processing operations

The study determined the performance of industrial firewood processing operations under the typical work conditions of Southern Europe. In particular, we surveyed five commercial operations processing 1-m-long oak logs from coppice forests. Mean log volume was very small, in the range of 0.01 to 0.02 m3 solid. Machine utilization was quite high, ranging from 70 to 80 percent. Mechanical availability was excellent, always exceeding 90 percent of the total worksite time. Productivity varied between 1.4 and 4.9 m3 per scheduled machine hour (SMH), inclusive of all delays. Processing cost ranged from 26 to 44 ?/m3. The largest machine in the group offered significant productivity and cost benefits over all the others. Owing to their multiple log handling capacity, firewood processors designed for Southern Europe may be less sensitive to log volume, compared with Nordic machines. The energy balance was always very favorable. The ratio between output and input was never smaller than 220 and peaked at 327. That was much higher than recorded for small-scale firewood processors, and it may depend on the use of more efficient electric motors compared with diesel engines. However, the main advantage of industrial firewood processors is production capacity and operator comfort and safety. This allows business growth, in the face of a very large market and a decreasing availability of skilled labor. Cost reduction is a secondary advantage, which becomes dramatic only when adopting machines at the higher end of the range.