Articles containing the keyword 'hakkuutyö'

The safety clothing, rubber safety boots, belt with lifting hooks and personal protectors can weight about 3 kg more than the normal work clothing including rubber boots. In order to evaluate the increase off the physical strain in logging work due to them, laboratory tests performed on tread mill were made. The physical strain increased 3–11% as estimated from heart rate and 4–8% as estimated from oxygen consumption measurements.

The PDF includes a summary in English.

• Klen, E-mail: tk@mm.unknown
• Louhevaara, E-mail: vl@mm.unknown

Work studies conducted in Finland and Sweden on forest work have shown that the performance of different workers or even of a same worker vary greatly, although external conditions such as the size and other properties of the trees, weather etc. are similar. It has been decided in the Northern Countries that as it is impossible to assess the working speed of a man, it is not possible to find out the average work performances, not even from long term time studies. The only way is to collect performance statistics.

Metsäteho (Forest Work Studies Section of the Central Association of Finnish Woodworking Industries) has collected since 1946 statistics on the working sites of forest industry companies in different parts of Finland on the preparation on timber. To make it comparable the material has been converted to uniform values by using the ratios given by the work time studies of various forest jobs conducted by Metsäteho. The ratios are necessary in trying to determine average performances by statistical means. The actual length of time each man is at work on different days and the actual number of days is needed, because in Finland the workers can themselves decide fairly freely the length of a working day. In forest work, wages are paid for the quantity prepared, not for time. The statistics collected by Metsäteho include information on the length of the working days, and conditions in each forest, such as the size of the trees, form of stem, branchiness, bark thickness, terrain, density of the forest, weather conditions etc.

The Acta Forestalia Fennica issue 61 was published in honour of professor Eino Saari’s 60th birthday.

The PDF includes a summary in English.

• Vöry, E-mail: jv@mm.unknown

The origins of time study has been in the need to streamline industrial work. One of the differences between industrial and forest work is that in forest work the working conditions are subject to continuous changes. The work is also strenuous, and physical strength may come into its own in addition to skill. For these reasons, the product of a worker per time unit varies in forest work much more than in industrial work.

In industrial time studies, determination of working tempo is, besides measurement of working time, vital when calculating the normal work performance. In the Northern Countries, it has been concluded that it is impossible to determine the working tempo of a forest worker. A so-called comparative time study in which a study is made of the work performances of the same workers at different jobs and in different conditions so that the measured working times are directly comparative. Also, the requirements made for the extension of time study material are considerably greater than in Central European time studies. It is believed that the workers subjected to time studies must be observed for at least a week in each kind of work studied if the results are to be considered reliable.

The Silva Fennica issue 61 was published in honour of professor Eino Saari‘s 60th birthday.

The PDF includes a summary in English.

• Makkonen, E-mail: om@mm.unknown

A time study was conducted in saw log harvesting site in state forests of Evo in Southern Finland in 1934. Felling was performed in teams of two loggers. Two teams were observed. The work was divided into several stages of work: felling, branching, cross-cutting, barking and making of top log. On the site grew Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.).

The daily working hours not including breaks was in average 5 hours and 33 minutes. The most time-consuming stage of the work was barking of the stem (55% of working time for Scots pine and 47% for Norway spruce), followed by felling (22.5% for pine and 19.4% for spruce), branching (11.7% and 21.6%) and cross-cutting (11.3% and 11.8%). Temperature affects barking strongly. Scots pine is slower to bark than Norway spruce. Similarly, butt and middle logs are slower to bark than top logs. It took in average 79.02 min to process one solid m³ of timber with bark and 91.45 min without bark.

The PDF includes a summary in German.

• Seppänen, E-mail: vs@mm.unknown

The aim of the study was to determine how different factors in the stand influence working efficiency in felling. In the eight cutting areas in Northern Finland was harvested a total of 745,200 cubic feet of timber. The factors recorded from the cutting areas were the number of stems per hectare, volume of the stems, quality of the logs (proportion of decayed trees and knottiness of the trees), topography of the site and efficiency of the workers in a team.

The bigger the stems were, the better the result of the workers was. When the size of the stem increased by one cubic ft., the efficiency of the work increased by 2 cubic ft. When knottiness and defects in the stem changed the class describing the quality of a tree by one class, the efficiency decreased by 4.5 cubic ft. The density of the forest affected the time used for loading the timber for hauling. The hauling distance affected the efficiency of the team, which was usually either 2 men and one horse, or 3 men and one horse. If the hauling distance was long, hauling impaired the efficiency. If the distance was short, logging impaired the efficiency of the work. The result show that efficiency of forest work is greatly influenced by the quality of the forest, the trees and the workers.

The PDF includes a summary in English.

• Vuoristo, E-mail: iv@mm.unknown

Forest work in Finland has generally been paid by the job. The wages in 1930s were based on variable measuring units and principles in different parts of the country. The rates did not often take into account how difficult the individual stands are to harvest. The studies have shown that the productivity of logging depends on size of the stems, density of the stand, branchiness of the trees, terrain and depth of snow cover. The article suggests a wage system which takes into account the differences of the cutting areas.

Wages of felling and hauling logs that are payed per the trunk or cubic meter should be adjusted so that the earnings of an employee depends not on the quality of the stand. The quality of the stand influences the stumpage price of the wood, because of the versatile harvesting costs. If the demands of the job in a challenging stand are not compensated for the workers, the higher harvesting costs are inequitably balanced by lowering the wages of the forest workers.

The PDF includes a summary in German.

• Vuoristo, E-mail: iv@mm.unknown

Work in the forestry, for instance, in logging operation during winter, has been important source of employment for the rural population in Finland. The study is based on statistics of forest work, felling, felled timber, workforce and horses used in the forest work in the state forests, published in the annual reports of Metsähallitus (Forest Service) in 1911-1913. The administrative and silvicultural work, for instance, sowing and planting, clearing of the felling area, building forest roads or work in the nurseries, range from 20% to 22% of all work done in the forestry. Major part of the work time is used in felling. To harvest one cubic meter of timber requires 0.3 man-days and 0.2 horse-days. The work is seasonal; felling work is available for about 90-100 days a year. Forest haulage is possible only in the winter, and for instance sowing and planting in the summer. The employees have secondary jobs in agriculture and in other sectors.

The PDF includes a summary in German.

• Helander, E-mail: ah@mm.unknown