Productivity of the M-Planter tree-planting device in practice

Abstract

Need to mechanise tree-planting work have recently increased for many reasons. The newest planting and soil scarification device performing work in Nordic forests is the Finnish M-Planter. This study aims to clarify M-Planter's productivity in practice and show how various factors affect it. The follow-up data set covers 607 work shifts, of 13 operators with, in total, five M-Planters. The average productivity figures for the operators were 143 and 169 seedlings per effective working hour during the first and second planting season, respectively. Overall, the measured average productivity was 34.2% lower than that observed in an earlier work study of the M-Planter based on an experimental study design. On average, the operators learned to use the combination of the M-Planter and a base machine more efficiently while their experience in using it increased during the follow-up. Increasing number of stones and stumps as well as a thicker humus layer decreased productivity of the M-Planter. The study concludes that utilisation of the full productivity potential of the M-Planter requires not only good operators but also development of the whole planting service supply chain.

Mechanized Tree Planting in Sweden and Finland: Current State and Key Factors for Future Growth

“…Also, Finnish contractors more often had two client companies and operated in two shifts per day, while Swedish contractors typically only had one client company and operated in a single shift per day. Still, annual use [29,30] (or more specifically Capacity Utilization [31] or Total Utilization [12]) of the Swedish planting machines was typically almost the same as the Finnish machines (in terms of average number of shifts per year: 150 vs. 160; Table 1) because of southern Sweden's longer planting season (typically 7 months vs. 5 months; Table 1). …”

“…This is contrary to our key factor "Contractors having several client forest companies", but the harvesting contractors in Mäkinen's study worked year around and were reported to have Capacity Utilization rates up to 99%. Planting machines, in Finland especially, cannot work year around, and tend to have one-third as high Capacity Utilization rates [12]. Thus, during the short Fennoscandian planting seasons, efficient route planning and small operating radii (the latter which multiple clients can give rise to) become comparatively more important for planting machines if they are to secure enough productive hours to pay for their capital costs.…”

“…Nevertheless, simply understanding that efficient seedling logistics is also a responsibility of the forest company might lead to greater efforts by the forest company [18]. Similar to all mechanized forestry work [37,38], the operator's skill level has a profound effect on planting machine productivity [12,14]. Thus, profitable mechanized tree planting requires access to skilled operators.…”

“…Even though the time consumption of mechanized planting is lower compared to separate (spot) mounding followed by manual planting, the cost-efficiency has still been poor compared to manual methods [4]. Cost-efficiency is hampered by low productivity, which originates from operator inexperience, among other reasons [12]. The choice of worksites also strongly influences productivity, and it has been reported that the presence of stones, slash, and stumps decreases the planting machines' productivity [13][14][15][16][17].…”

“…Machine Utilization (MU) has a strong impact on contractor profitability, and MU is often comparatively low for planting machines [12]. In turn, factors like workplace organization and seedlings logistics have a strong impact on the planting machines' MU [10,19,20].…”