Effect of Feller-Buncher Model, Slope Class and Cutting Area on the Productivity and Costs of Whole Tree Harvesting in Brazilian Eucalyptus Stands

The operational productivity and costs of tree felling operations can be influenced by several factors, among which, the machine characteristics, slope class, the cutting area and the individual volume of the trees stand out. Thus, the main objective of the present study was to analyze the productivity and production cost for two feller-bunchers with different technical characteristics operating in a eucalyptus forest. The productivity was calculated from a time study and the factors analyzed were two feller-buncher models, two slope classes, and two cutting areas. The machine cost per scheduled hour was based on the methodology of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Analysis of the results showed that the felling and turn operational elements occupied the most time in the operational cycle of feller-bunchers. The machine cost per scheduled hour was USD 69.69 h−1 for feller-buncher 1 and USD 102.03 h−1 for feller-buncher 2. In conclusion, the distinct technical characteristics of feller-bunchers were found to influence the productivity and, consequently, the cost, of the felling operation during the harvesting of whole eucalyptus trees.

Analysis of Harvesting Sustainability

The existing harvesters for farming purposes are not affordable to small-scale farmers because of their financial reasons. Moreover, there is a requirement of a small, economic, more accessible & effective machine cost and also these are not available in most of the rural areas due to transportation or finance which would be easily operatable by the small scale farmers. In view of this, the present study was carried out by a depth review of literature s and expert concern is taken for existing harvesting practices and machines. Further, on the basis of ergonomic assessment followed by ISM analysis was done for considering the existing and the modified machines.

Automatic Packaging Machine

Many small scale food production business owners and small and medium scale Grocery Store owners do the process of weighing and packaging their product manually. Small and Medium scale food production business owners has to do the weighing, filling and packaging process manually. The sealing process is carried out with the help of candles. This process is very time and effort consuming and thus it limits their production as well as their business. Automatic Weighing and Packaging which is priced at the rate mentioned is not affordable for small scale and medium scale businesses. This project aims to develop such a machine which automatically weighs and packs the food with the help of microcontroller and sensors. The idea is to manually place the bag, then automatic weighing, filling and packaging is done. The purpose of doing this project is to reduce human efforts and time consumption. Decreasing machine cost is the major advantage of project. The machine design is based on simple mechanisms and it can be installed easily. The speed of packaging is increased thus resulting in more production and business. It will eradicate the traditional packing and sealing method. This process will reduce the number of paid workers.

The Impact of Felling Method, Bunch Size, Slope Degree and Skidding Area on Productivity and Costs of Skidding in a Eucalyptus Plantation

Grapple skidder is a machine designed for the extraction of tree bunches after felling. Several factors influence its technical performance and costs such as terrain slope, operator experience time, machine type, and the size of tree bunches for each operating cycle, among others. Thus, it becomes necessary to weigh the variables that most influence the productivity and costs of the grapple skidder. So, the main objective was evaluated according to the influence of bunch size using two feller bunchers with distinct technical characteristics, two slope classes and two skidding areas on the productivity and machine production cost in a Eucalyptus plantation. For the analysis of the productivity, the study of time and method was applied and the scheduled machine cost per hour was based on the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations methods. When analyzing the results, it was found that the operational elements moving without load (MWoL) and moving with load (MWL) were the ones that spend the most time in the operational cycle of the grapple skidder. Among the cost components, monetary expenditure on fuel and operator labor were the most influential in the scheduled machine cost per hour. In conclusion, the tree bunches and slope class influenced the productivity and, consequently, the cost of the skidding operation.

Automatic Orange Juice Vending Machine

The purpose of this project to construct automatically operated orange juice vending machine. The operation of this machine very easy comparatively to other machine, with good efficiency. The machine cost was less and easy to manufacture. Power consumption is low. We added one rotating wheel which can take orange one by one. The dimensions are 3 ft. height and 1.5 ft. in width and 1.5 ft. length. The two rollers and three blades are used to remove the juice from orange. A DC motors are used to drive the roller and blades and IR sensor sense the coin which we insert in the coin insertion box. The blades are used for the cutting purpose of orange. The two DC motors are used for rotating the blades and roller. In this machine does not required any other equipment to pressing action, for extraction of orange juice. Two blades are fitted parallel to each other and one blade below the parallel blade, due to this pressing action can achieve efficiently. The function of roller in this machine it can extract juice from small pieces of orange which crush by blades. The automatically operated mechanical unit consists of a pair of motors, relays, roller and blades. The gear casing was constructed using 2mm thickness of mild steel sheet. The electronic parts consist the control unit, sensor and relays. The 3 motors are attached with L293D motor driver IC which is controlled by 8051 microcontroller. The sensor is used for the monitoring the PH of juice.

Online Bi-Criteria Scheduling on Batch Machines with Machine Costs

We consider online scheduling with bi-criteria on parallel batch machines, where the batch capacity is unbounded. In this paper, online means that jobs’ arrival is over time. The objective is to minimize the maximum machine cost subject to the makespan being at its minimum. In unbounded parallel batch scheduling, a machine can process several jobs simultaneously as a batch. The processing time of a job and a batch is equal to 1. When job J j is processed on machine M i , it results cost c i j . We only consider two types of cost functions: c i j = a + c j and c i j = a · c j , where a is the fixed cost of machines and c j is the cost of job J j . The number of jobs is n and the number of machines is m. For this problem, we provide two online algorithms, which are showed to be the best possible with a competitive ratio of ( 1 + β m , ⌈ n m ⌉ ) , where β m is the positive root of the equation ( 1 + β m ) m + 1 = β m + 2 .