Forestry equipment by application in Australia

Match felling, processing, extraction and roadside capacity as one system. The slowest stage determines the output you can sell.

Plantation harvesting is bought as a system, not as a machine. Felling, processing, extraction, sorting and loading each have a sustained hourly capacity, and the one with the lowest capacity sets what the whole chain can sell. Capital spent upstream or downstream of that constraint buys nothing: a faster harvester in front of an under-sized forwarder produces a larger pile at the stump, not more timber at the roadside.

The two variables that move the sum most are extraction distance and landing capacity, and neither appears on a specification sheet. A haul that doubles absorbs forwarder hours without changing the harvester's output, and a landing that cannot be sorted and loaded at the rate timber arrives will stop the chain regardless of what the machines can do. Utilisation is the third: a plantation fleet is only affordable at the hours a contract can actually keep it working, which is why contract length belongs in the purchase decision.

1. 01Fell and process
2. 02Extract
3. 03Sort at roadside
4. 04Load and haul

Binding KPI: Cost per saleable cubic metre at roadside

Treat the machine, tether, anchors, access and extraction plan as one engineered system. Mobility alone is not a production plan.

Steep-country work is an engineering problem before it is a machine problem. The carrier, the winch-assist system, the rope, the anchors, the access track and the extraction plan are approved and operated as one system, and the limits that matter are the ones in the machine's own approval documentation and the applicable state requirements — not what a machine can be made to climb.

The commercial consequence is that setup time, not machine speed, tends to govern the rate. Corridors have to be planned, anchors established and the system repositioned, and that time is charged against the same productive hours the capital is amortised over. When comparing steep-country options, compare productive hours inside the engineered operating envelope rather than nominal machine capacity, and confirm operator training and certification requirements early — they are a real constraint on how quickly a new machine starts earning.

1. 01Engineer anchors
2. 02Tether the carrier
3. 03Process on contour
4. 04Extract safely

Binding KPI: Productive hours within the engineered operating envelope

Specify the required site outcome first: standing material cut, residue mulched, stumps extracted or soil prepared. Each result needs a different tool.

Land clearing is priced by the hectare and lost by the hectare, because the site outcome is specified loosely far more often than it is specified precisely. Cutting standing material, mulching residue to a stated particle size, removing stumps and preparing soil are four different results needing four different tools, and a quote written against the wrong one of them is a quote written against the wrong machine.

Density is the risk that bites. Stem count, species and understorey vary across a single job, and a rate built on the lighter half of a block will not survive the heavier half. Mobilisation is the second: moving a tracked mulcher and float to site costs the same whether the job is two hectares or twenty, which is why small jobs are so often the unprofitable ones. Both are reasons to build the rate from your own machine costs rather than from a competitor's advertised price.

1. 01Survey material
2. 02Control standing timber
3. 03Process residue
4. 04Treat stumps

Binding KPI: Cost per compliant hectare, including mobilisation

Choose the system around the specified fuel-treatment outcome, environmental constraints and the number of passes—not a headline cutting diameter.

Fuel-reduction work is purchased against an outcome, not a machine movement. Access width, retained vegetation, residue size, fuel continuity and soil disturbance should be defined before a contractor chooses a treatment system or prices a hectare.

Density, moisture, rock and the accepted finish drive production more strongly than maximum cutting diameter. A representative site inspection and demonstration expose pass count, tool wear and environmental limits that cannot be recovered from a brochure figure.

1. 01Define the standard
2. 02Survey fuel and rock
3. 03Treat vegetation
4. 04Verify the result

Binding KPI: Cost per hectare accepted at the specified treatment standard

Sequence residue treatment, stump management, cultivation and planting around soil condition, survival targets and the next operation.

Plantation establishment begins with the condition left by harvesting. Residue distribution, stump height, compaction, drainage and access determine whether the next rotation needs mulching, stump treatment, cultivation or only targeted route preparation.

The commercial unit is a successfully established hectare, not a machine hour. Preparation should therefore be judged by planting access, rework and survival outcomes as well as its immediate hectares per shift.

1. 01Assess residue
2. 02Treat stumps
3. 03Prepare soil
4. 04Protect planting quality

Binding KPI: Cost per successfully established hectare

Begin with feedstock contamination and the buyer's product specification. Chipper versus grinder is a material decision before it is a horsepower decision.

Chipper against grinder is decided by what is in the feedstock long before it is decided by horsepower. Clean, sorted stemwood suits a chipper and produces a consistent product; stumps, soil-contaminated residue and demolition-grade material will take a chipper's knives out of service and belong in a grinder, which tolerates contamination at the cost of a coarser, more variable product.

The buyer's product specification is the other half of the decision. Particle size, moisture and contamination tolerance are contractual, and material that fails specification at the gate is a delivered cost with no revenue against it. Feed continuity governs the economics from there: a high-capacity processor waiting on the loader is expensive idle capital, so the grapple, the feedstock pile and the outbound trailers need sizing alongside the machine rather than after it.

1. 01Aggregate feedstock
2. 02Feed continuously
3. 03Size the product
4. 04Load to offtake

Binding KPI: Delivered cost per accepted tonne