T4E Bucking App

T4E Bucking App ready for download!

Two years of development and a lot of testing by Latschbacher and the Institute of Forest Engineering of BOKU led to this mobile device based application for value-optimized motor-manual bucking. Get our T4E Bucking App now for free from GooglePlay Store!

Why a Bucking App?

When timber is harvested, trees are felled and cut (“bucked”) into pieces (so called “assortments”) of different length. Pricing of the assortments depends on their length, diameter class and quality and is given in € per m³, which is then multiplied with the respective volume. In motor-manual felling and bucking operations, the chainsaw operator has to determine which assortments to cut from a given tree. By separating the tree into the most suitable combination of assortments, the highest value can be gained from a given tree. In contrast to fully mechanized harvesting operations, chainsaw operators are at the moment not aided by computers when taking this value-defining decision. Further, they are lacking a proper performance documentation in the form of an assortment list and aggregated volumes per assortment, species, quality, length or diameter class.

How does it work?

The T4E Bucking App is an application for Android OS mobile devices, which aims to close this gap. With the T4E Bucking App, a value-optimized bucking scheme can be determined for a given tree from tree and contractual parameters entered by the user, thereby assisting the chainsaw operator in this critical decision. Further, the T4E Bucking App provides after-operation statistics, which can be utilized for documentation and planning purposes.

However, the T4E Bucking App does not aim to replace, but to assist the human brain when taking the bucking decision. While on the one hand enabling fully computer-aided operation, the user is on the other hand able to select a customized bucking scheme, which can be compared to the value-optimized scheme. This functionality aims at providing the user with a training option, which can be employed for both personal and institutionalized education and training purposes. This functionality is of further use when defects that go unnoticed during the visual pre-bucking inspection require to alter the original bucking scheme.

Download the Manual for details.

Who is it for?

The T4E Bucking App’s target groups are (1) only occasionally bucking users (“farmer”), (2) users in education and training (forestry schools and training centres) and (3) professional chainsaw operators. The intention of the app is to not make the user depending on it to take the bucking decision, but to aid the decision as long as the user is not skilled enough to take the decision on his own. Occasionally bucking users are envisioned to profit from the app by assisted training on the job and increased value recovery due to a well-founded decision. In education and training, the app can be used as a tool to compare trainees’ ideas of the most suitable bucking scheme to each other or during personal training to the suggested value-optimized scheme. Professional users can benefit from the T4E Bucking App in terms of work documentation and as calibration tool, where every now and then the user decision is compared against the suggested solution.