Understanding fuel efficiency takes more than just measuring the fuel you put in the tank at the end of the day.To really understand the efficiency of your forestry equipment, you need to employ a consistent way to record results at the jobsite over an extended period of time and to take into account the work that was done. The real measure is “How much fuel did it take to produce a ton of wood?”
When setting up and collecting data it is important that all test conditions be as similar as possible or your results will be skewed. “For Deere factory run studies we do this to the nth degree when comparing our machine to a competitive unit,” said Bill Borrenpohl, product comparison leader for forestry. "We use the same configuration (same tires, same teeth, same grapple, same blade, etc.). When measuring fuel consumption, a special auxiliary tank that compensates for aeration and temperature replaces the guesswork. Laptops with advanced software programs are set up in the field to obtain real-time data so users can check for subtle variations such as operator learning curves, changes in materials, and altered or changed operator styles."
“We work hard to keep studies structured and systematic. Detailed procedures are laid out to make sure each piece of equipment sees the same conditions and operations. Our engineers watch the proceedings to see if they can spot an unfair bias or wrong way of cycling the equipment. If they see something out of the ordinary, we stop the test immediately and start over. We have made a real commitment to make sure everything is accurate and that we are getting realistic data. We do the same thing every time to make sure each machine tested gets a fair shake.”
For example on a feller buncher, “if you have set up two test courses, both 50 feet wide and a 150 feet long, you cannot have one lane with 100 trees and the other with 25,” said Borrenpohl. “We try to be as apples to apples as possible by testing on the same terrain, with the same average height and diameter of wood, using the same operators and running the same duty cycle.”
The information gathered during testing is also used in John Deere’s Product Development Program to design new equipment. We are always looking at ways to make improvements to the productivity, fuel burned, machine performance, and visibility. “We make design changes to make a more efficient piece of equipment,” said Borrenpohl. The long-term value to the customer is that they get a machine that does more work and burns less fuel.”
More information on effective ways to measure fuel consumption in logging equipment.
