Technodiversity Glossary

Effectiveness is one of thepartial objectives when we look for the suitability of any option to find the optimal option. It explains in which extent the effect of any option fulfils the demands that are given by the corresponding sub-objective. For example, when we want to fell and extract trees from any harvesting site, the effectiveness is 100 % if we can extract all trees. If not, it will be worst.

Effectiveness in the decision-making model for forest harvesting operations appears under three different contexts:

·       The economic effectiveness asks whether the operation fulfils the economic demands. Like in the example above, the effectiveness describes whether everything that we want to reach will be reached. So, economic effectiveness means functionality, technical coverage…

·       The ecological effectiveness deals with the ecological risks and side-effects of the operations. The drift is towards the optimal solution without any risks or side-effects. We call it ecological compatibility.

·       Also the social effectiveness deals with risks and site-effects, but in this case they are measured against the societal needs. Here we see the disturbance of people who want to recreate in the forest, who look for cultural demands and so on. We call it societal compatibility.

(See more under TDiv PR1-A03)

Effectiveness, economic see economic effectiveness

Efficiency is one of thepartial objectives when we look for the suitability of any option to find the optimal option. If more than one option leads to a comparable effect, the decision maker looks for that one that promises the lowest input. Or when he wants to invest a certain input, he hopes to receive an output that is as high as possible. These are two opposite poles of efficiency; between them all combinations are possible.

In the decision-making model for forest harvesting operations, efficiency occurs under tree contexts:

·       Economic efficiency (or simply efficiency) demands to spare money. The cheapest option is the best under point of view of efficiency. It can be calculated by machine cost calculation.

·       With the ecological efficiency, the ecological input is the crucial “currency”. For example, energy consumption and grey energy can be seen as important criteria. In case of forest operations, the forest soil, which is compacted by the machines, can be seen as the most important input variable. We call it eco-efficiency.

·       The word social efficiency sound hard and somehow anti-social. But it means that the social resource, the workers, are treated with care so that they don't suffer from the operations. Therefore, we prefer the word ergonomics, which means the health care and safety from accidents during the work. 

(See more under TDiv PR1-A03)

Efficiency, ecological see eco-efficiency

see economic efficiency

Efficiency, social see ergonomics

See natural regeneration of soil

Depending on local economy, underemployment can be an issue of societal compatibility. In that case, forestry may offer an opportunity to unskilled workers and therefore it represents an asset for the local society. For that reason, decision makers may favor labour-intensive logging systems that do not require specialized workers as mechanized systems do.

A good attribute to measure this is the degree of mechanization:

As a tendency, fully manual methods achieve very low productivities but offer employment to workers with low qualifications.

Partly motor-manual methods demand for better skills but achieve a relatively low productivity, too.

Fully motor-manual and partly mechanized methods need well educated and skilled workers, so that not every job-seeker is viable.

Fully mechanized work has the lowest employment potential, since it relies on very few but highly educated operators.

The engineering formula covers all different sorts of costs that a working system has during its life span. It calculates the costs per hour. Since in real life during this hour some short interruptions can happen, the calculation is made for PMH₁₅, which means one hour including short breaks until 15 minutes.

The cost components are depreciation, interest costs, repair and maintenance costs, variable costs and labor costs.

(See more at TDiv PR1-C02)

Ergonomics is a partial objective for decision-making. It tries to lower the stress and strain that derives from the working site and to minimize the danger to be hurt by accidents or any occupational disease (it does not cover the option to spare a working site at all, when the reason is to spare the labor costs).

Together with its twin societal compatibility we can assess the social suitability that is one sub-objective to find the optimal option. Parallel to the social suitability we also should look at the economic and the ecological suitability. For more information about systematics of decision-making, look at objectives and three-step model of optimization.

(See more under TDiv PR1-A03 and PR1-E04)