Intelligent Boom Control System On Forwarder - Inexperienced Operator Benefits More

Loading and unloading are crucial oprational time categories influencing forwarder productivity. Intelligent boom control (IBC) system, which was implemented in 2013 in forwarder John Deere, aims at shortening time of loading and unloading, resulting in higer productivity of extracting. Productivity of forwarder depends also on operator experience, with obvious relation that more experienced one will perform higher productivity. The objective of presented research was to find out how much time can be saved when using IBC system with particular attention to inexperienced and experienced operator. The research was carried out on John Deere 1510G forwarder in two scenarios: 1) in controlled conditions (CC), where the same logs were distributed twice along forwarder passage and were collected twice: once with IBC on and once with IBC off; 2) in typical stand conditions (SC), where logs from one part of the plot were collected with IBC on and another part with no IBC. In scenario 2) in SC, two operators took part in the experiment: 1) inexperienced (IO), with nine months work on John Deer 1210E with no IBC and ten months work on John Deer 1510G, which was exuipped with IBC and used constatnly by the operator. Experienced operator (EO) had 15 years work experience on forwarders mainly, but also on harvesters, including 20 months on forwarder 1510G with IBC. The outcomes of the research show that IBC system brings the biggest benefit to an inexperienced operator. Namely, loading and unloading was faster by 3.5% and 14.4% respectively on CC, whereas in SC loading and unloading was accordingly faster by 17.7% and 21.7%. Whole extracting in SC was 16.7% faster when using IBC. In relation to EO, the research showed that IBC system impacts his work to lower degree: use of IBC system makes faster loading and unloading by 6.1% and 4.5%, respectively in SC, and by 4.3% in overall extracting process in SC.