BREAKING OUT
Last year, NZ Logger outlined a 2-staging experiment in Whanganui using an 8x8 truck-based ‘super forwarder’. With the landing, skid site and roading created especially for it, this machine has been showing what the new system is capable of achieving. Time for an update.
THE WINDS OF CHANGE DON’T ALWAYS BLOW SMOOTHLY in forestry, but down in the lower half of the North Island, one change seems to have breezed in without leaving chaos in its wake.
On the contrary, it’s had a remarkably positive effect, which could become far-reaching for the industry as a whole.
Last year, NZ Logger visited Whanganui to look at some new ideas being trialled by Forest Growers Research (FGR) to make harvesting operations more efficient, safer and kinder to the environment.
One of those ideas was a ‘re-invention’ of two-staging extraction that was about to be put into operation on a 420-hectare privatelyowned forest managed by FOMS Ltd.
The idea was based around using an 8x8 truck to run loads from small landings over simplified tracks to a super-skid near the public road for sorting.
It’s now been more than 12 months since the trial began. Has it worked?
We caught up with FOMS Director, Marcus Musson, at the recent Woodflow 2018 conference in Rotorua to hear the results. But first, a recap on what prompted the project in the first place.
Like many in the industry, FOMS has become increasingly concerned about the environmental effects of harvesting steep blocks, where a large amount of land is disturbed in the creation of big landings to process, stack and load wood, as well as expensive roading that results in tracks pushed through erosion-prone hills, leaving large side-casts that are vulnerable to slipping in bad weather.
These have been common practices in much of New Zealand’s steep country forests for years, but it comes at a cost, says Marcus.
In the broken and steep topography that is typically found in the southern North Island, especially around Whanganui, creating roads and landings is very challenging and has become even more so following the introduction of HPMV log trucks – their extra length and weight demands even more expensive earthworks to provide roads capable of taking these larger rigs.
It is exacting a heavy cost on the environment and it’s hitting forest owners and their harvesting and transport contractors in the pocket, too. It takes more time to create infrastructure in the traditional manner and then maintain it, there’s more money tied up in machinery, value recovery is hampered by restrictions on how many log sorts can be done on the landing, and just trying to work
on and drive in and out of these challenging locations becomes a safety issue. For transport operators it also means they have to invest extra cash in building trucks and trailers that can stand up to the punishment dealt out by forestry roads.
Such challenges are hard enough for well-resourced corporate foresters to overcome but they can be a serious impediment for woodlot owners and their suppliers.
Marcus says the futility of continuing to harvest the same old way was brought home when the subject was raised with Spencer Hill, of Forest Growers Research, who suggested a complete re-think of harvesting practices, otherwise recovering wood from smaller hill country forests may not be economically or environmentally feasible in future.
It was proposed that all the sorting and loading out should take place away from the landing, as close to the public road as possible, with cut logs transported between them on an all-wheeldrive ‘super-forwarder’ across ridgeline tracks.
This would have a number of benefits:
There would be fewer log stacks on the landing – just longs, short and ultra-shorts – and they’d only spend a short time there before being carted to the super-skid
Landings would be much smaller, reducing the amount of earthworks
Only one machine would work next to the yarder to process the stems and then change to a grapple for loading logs, using a newly developed Quick Hitch mechanism
Reducing the number of moving machines on the landing and
taking log sorts away would improve safety as there is less man/ machine interaction
With roads mostly keeping to ridgelines instead of curving around the hills, routes would be shorter and the amount of earthwork disturbance would be reduced, practically eliminating side-casts
A truck with 8, 10 or even 12 driving wheels would be kinder to the road surface, so less in-forest roading maintenance would be required
Using a larger super-skid in an easily managed location would allow more log sorts to be made, thus increasing value recovery Positioning the super-skid near the forest entrance would allow lighter, road-only and less costly log trucks to be used.
The key to making this system work was finding a fast, reliable, low-cost and effective ‘super-forwarder’ that could traverse the steep ridgeline tracks in all weathers, get around any tight corners and carry as much as a traditional log truck and trailer, but just on a single machine without a trailer.
Traditional forwarders were deemed to be too slow and unable to carry the loads envisaged – up to 30 tonnes and sometimes more! So it had to be a non-articulated truck.
Spencer Hill suggested a Tatra all-wheel-drive truck after doing some research on various options.
Tatra is a truck manufacturer based in the Czech Republic and has a long history of vehicle manufacturing – it’s actually the third oldest vehicle maker in the world, having built its first car in 1897, before deciding to concentrate on trucks. Today, Tatra is best known for producing specialist go-anywhere trucks for use in construction, mining, military, fire service and even forestry. They range from 6x6 up to 12x12 configurations and are uniquely
powered by air-cooled 8-cylinder engines. Ideal for carting logs in extreme conditions.
However, there is no importer here and they are not readily available in New Zealand, though Tatra does have a distributor in Australia, where most of its trucks are utilised in the mining industry.
Another concern; even if a suitable truck could be sourced, who would fund it and which forest owners would be willing to take part in an experiment that was still only a theory?
Fortunately, the owner of the soon-to-be-harvested Kenderdine Forest, near Whanganui, was a FOMS client and when he heard about the idea he was so keen he decided to look at purchasing the trucks himself and ended up buying a pair of ex-drill rig 8x8 Tatras from Australia and shipping them back home.
On arrival, the best of the Tatra trucks was refurbished and fitted with a custom-made set of log bolsters that are designed to forgo the use of chains, while the second truck is being held as a spare. Between the FOMS team, the forest/truck owner and Daniel Matthews of JDT Engineering in Whanganui, they devised a sliding bolster system that can accommodate various log sizes. In addition to the gate just behind the cab, the rear sliding section has a tailboard built into it, so when the logs are loaded into the bunk, they are neatly sandwiched between the two gates.
“The tailboard closes up to accommodate the differing log lengths and we don’t need to chain them because they’re not going to slide around and fall out – it means the driver can sit in the safety of the cab and move off as soon as the bunk is full, which saves time, and he can remain in the cab at the other end because he doesn’t have to unchain them,” says Marcus.
More time is saved because the Tatra doesn’t need to have a trailer lifted off by a loader – it just drives into the site and in nextto-no time it’s loaded up and off to the super-skid. Marcus reckons each loading/unloading sequence can be completed in under five minutes.
When NZ Logger last saw the Tatra in the Autumn of 2017, it was still in the engineering shop and was yet to make its first paying trip.
By the middle of last year, it was ready to go to work under an arrangement between the forest/truck owner and FOMS, whereby the Tatra is leased to the harvesting contractor on his behalf to operate as envisaged by Marcus and Spencer.
But before it could start work, the forest infrastructure had to be suitably prepared in order to meet the requirements of the proposed two-staging plan.
The Kenderdine Forest operation is run with two crews; one to oversee the roading and a separate crew to concentrate on harvesting. Ideally, says Marcus, it would work better with one crew handling everything, which would create an improved overall understanding of the logistics of the operation.
Even though the roads were designed to take a more straightforward route, they still needed the pavement to be constructed to the same standard as for conventional log trucks, so the costs per linear metre are no different. However, the real savings are made in reducing the length of roads by using ridgelines where practicable. This was made possible by creating road grades as steep as 1-in-3, which is about the same as Dunedin’s famed Baldwin Street!
And yes, the Tatra has no trouble tackling that sort of slope with a 30-tonne-plus load of logs in the bunk, using its 8 driving wheels and independent suspension to great effect. Through two winters, it’s never needed a push to get up a slope. And going down, the driver can call on a retarder to help with braking on steep, slippery surfaces.
“We ended up replacing the double wheels and tyres with super singles and that makes a real difference – even using old tyres with little tread costing around $100 each it will climb like you wouldn’t believe,” says Marcus. The super singles also provide a higher load rating.
As well as a reduction in roading, landing platforms were shrunk down in size to accommodate less wood, but there’s scope to go smaller, because the Quick Hitch has not yet gone into operation, meaning a separate loader was still required in addition to the processor. It is hoped the Quick Hitch will be deployed in the coming weeks.
An alternative option that may be considered in the future, adds Marcus, is to fit a loading crane onto the truck, which could potentially see it replace two loaders in a small woodlot job.
To ensure the Tatra operates as safely as possible on these steep and unforgiving forestry roads, its track was widened 500mm to give it more stability. This was deemed necessary after the bolsters had been moved out to provide a bunk width of 3.05 metres – the maximum allowable width without a pilot when it’s being transported on the road.
And no, it’s not legally allowed to drive on the road. For practical reasons, it’s classed as a forwarder not an off-highway truck under the LTSC code.
The bunk has been designed to take a variety of log lengths, from two packets of 4-metre logs, or a combo of 3s and 5s, up to 8-metre single lengths.
Marcus says the original intention was to cut all grades into four stacks on the landing, consisting of domestic pruned, domestic
saw logs, export longs and export shorts. These would be taken down to the super-skid by the Tatra to re-sort, QC and load out.
QC-ing was trialled at the super-skid with varying results and it was later decided to revert to doing QC and branding back on the landing. It’s not ideal, especially from a safety viewpoint on confined sites, but it is still early days and the original idea could be made to work in future with more fine tuning.
But the rest of the experiment appears to be going according to plan.
In this forest, the Tatra has been doing a round trip approximately every 25 minutes, with the longest trans-ship distance being 3.5 kilometres and the shortest 1.8 kilometres and it’s proved to be about three-to-four times quicker than a traditional forwarder.
With maximum loads carried each time, it could hit 400 tonnes per day, but the average production level in this operation has varied between 300 and 350 tonnes per day. Not bad for a yarder-based operation, although these totals do include wood from the ground-based road-lining crew.
At a fraction of the price of a brand new truck, the Tatra is pretty cost-effective, too.
And the numbers look pretty good when you break them down even further, says Marcus.
Compared with similar forests in the region, logging costs have reduced by around 7%; cartage costs on long leads have reduced by 15%; skid costs have come down an impressive 30%; road distance has also reduced by 30%; there are good savings on road maintenance, because the Tatra leaves almost no corrugations on the surface, the increase use of ridgelines has reduced slips and one operator now looks after the road, instead of two or three.
The harvesting contractor and transport provider are happy. With regular uplift of logs from the landing it has taken the pressure off the crew as there is always space for cut logs. Plus, the guys up there don’t have to worry about dockets or assisting the driver with a trailer. It’s safer without the driver needing to get out. And the super-skid enables the operations to work more efficiently and productively.
For the transport provider, the biggest bonus is much reduced damage and maintenance through trucks not having to traverse forestry roads. In the long term it will allow them to use dedicated road trucks, which means they may also have the opportunity to use seasonal drivers and even bed in learner drivers. Having the super-skid much closer to the public road has improved load-out and turn-around times. And there are numerous safety benefits, such as less exposure to roll-over dangers on steep slopes, more space for setting up the trailer, chaining up and keeping away from other machines.
Marcus says the benefits that have accrued from the project have proven that it was the right decision. All the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) identified at the outset have been met and he can definitely see this two-staging experiment being extended to other operations under the FOMS umbrella.
“Potentially the system would work on most of our sites, anywhere that you have environmental issues, or you’ve got some difficult roading, and around Whanganui 80% of the blocks are difficult,” he says.
The idea still requires some tweaks. So what would they do differently?
Use one contractor for all functions for ease of management, says Marcus, adding that it would ideally suit a two- or three-crew operation with a quick-coupler for the processor to be able to switch to a grapple when needed.
While the 8x8 Tatra has worked well, he thinks a 10x10 or a 10x8 would be an even better configuration, allowing for a self-loading crane to be fitted.
We’d like to see that one.