Technodiversity Glossary

Objectives of forest operations depend on the objectives of the decision-making body, which normally is the forest owner. He follows his individual set of objectives, only.

In a first glance we can assume that there will be an overarching task to maximize the income of the owner. But things should be differentiated a bit more:

·      The material objective of any forest and herewith also for every forest owner is to care about the forest and to deliver services and goods in a sustainable way. This defines the typical character of this branch, its restrictions and limitations.

·      The manager of the forest must regard all these limitations. But inside these restrictions and natural limitations, different options are given to optimize the success. Choosing the best option is the original job of the manager. But what is the best? Here the overarching task may be to maximize the income of the owner, but in some cases, there are diverging priorities. The success of the manager is measured on the background of this formal objective.

So, not only one objective is followed but a set of more than one. Normally we work with three objectives, economy, ecology and social aspect. The relationship between them can be fixed with an ultimate goal that is typical for the forest owner resp. company.

Since the objectives and the ultimate goal are valid for all actions of the company (like silviculture, hunting, nature conservation and harvesting, e.g.), they must be broken down for each field. For each objective we are looking for one corresponding sub-objective that defines the suitability of the means to reach the objective. So, the sub-objectives for forest operations are economic suitability, ecological suitability and social suitability.

Each sub-objective can further be subdivided into two partial objectives, the effectiveness and the efficiency. Thus, at the end we have exactly 6 partial objectives that in common describe the suitability of operational options. We call this step the assessment as the objective part of the decision-making process.

Like we have seen with the ultimate goal, also the sub-objectives can be brought to a relationship by the help of a general concept. A well-developed general concept for forest operations declares the priorities and preferences of sub-objectives and partial objectives in order to find a final evaluation of the best option.

(See more in TDiv PR1-A02 and A03).

Operational method describes a special aspect of a working method. While the working method gives an overview on machine, input and output of the method, the operational method concentrates on the work of the operator. It asks what he has to do, in which sequence he must go on, what he must look for…

But sometimes the worker does not exactly what he is asked to do. Maybe he invents his own sequence of steps or he works in a way that conflicts with any safety rules – then we call it the manner of working.

(See more under TDiv PR1-E03)

On the operative level of decision-making, persons fell a lot of daily decisions during the operation to reach the assigned tasks. This happens on all management levels. But concerning forest technology and its impact to forests, mostly the forest workers and operators with their machines make things happen. So, collaborators on this practical level have a high and direct influence to the technical effects and damage to products, forest stands and soils by their operative decisions. 

The term “operative” should not be confused with “operational” that means that an objective is defined with clear results, responsibilities and appointed days.

(see more in TDiv PR1-A05)

This is one method to find the best option. Other methods are minimax rule, monetarization, utility analysis, and AHP, for example.

This method that has been developed at Harvard University. With this method the efficiency and the effectiveness of each option are compared against each other. 

This works well when there is only one effectiveness and one efficiency. Since we have three criteria, we need to adapt it a bit: 

• We combine all efficiencies to one overall efficiency
• and all effectivenesses to one overall effectiveness.

Here, we use the the same example as with the other decision making methods and also the same weights.

Option 3 is located on the highest optimality curve, while option 1 is the worst option.

(See more under PR1-F04)