G. E. SEGERSTRÖMG. E. SEGERSTRÖM is a transport economist in the FAO Forestry and Forest Industries Division.
Throughout the world it is of vital importance that transport systems for wood and wood products be developed and improved to the greatest possible extent, especially as forest products are among the most important exports of many developing countries. Transport costs may be expected to rise very rapidly in certain cases if conventional methods of transport and shipping are adhered to and progress in this field is ignored. When some cargo liners make only 2 ½ round voyages a year between Australia and Europe and stevedoring accounts for as much as one third of the total round voyage cost, it seems clear that particular attention should be focused on shortening the time spent in port and on improving cargo handling methods.
Processed wood, such as sawnwood and various kinds of board products, is admirably suited for making up strapped unit loads that can be handled in the same manner as containerized goods, with the added advantage of avoiding the problem of return shipment normally associated with container usage.
Furthermore, there seems to be a trend toward specialized ships which can give better service and quicker round voyages. However, this requires big shipments and a smooth flow of wood products to keep the system working without interruption. Japanese transport of wood chips from the United States shows that long-distance transport in specialized vessels can be efficient and economical.
The principles of the unit-load system have been adopted by many organizations and enterprises as being the most economic way to distribute wood and wood products. One of the most consistent systems operated within this context is the transport system of the Svenska Cellulosa AB Sweden (SCA).
SCA is the biggest forestry enterprise in Sweden. The value of the total output in 1967 was $200 million, of which 72 percent was exported. The principal products exported are pulp, paper and sawnwood. These are produced in a number of big industrial units in the north of Sweden. SCA also holds interests in several companies in the United States and Canada, and in Europe.
For many years SCA has worked on a programme intended to make, their transport and distribution system more efficient in order to meet the hard competition in the market of forest products. The new system, which went partly into operation in July 1967, and which has since shown very positive results, covers all transport operations from the forest to the overseas customer. The elements of this system are now to be described.
The SCA mills are located along a 500-kilometre stretch of the Gulf of Bothnia. Within the southern part of this coast - in the area of Sundsvall - 50 percent of the total requirements in wood (more than one million cubic metres solid) used to be transported by trucks and the rest floated by river. The areas from which logs were trucked are situated less than 100 kilometres from the coast.
A survey dealing with the transport conditions of wood to the various industries showed that this combination of land and water transport was a complicated and costly method. In order to minimize transport costs, all possible alternatives were studied. The comparative costs of pure truck transport and a combination of truck and railway transport were carefully investigated. The possibilities of converting the pulpwood to chips in the forest or in centralized chip plants were also considered.
As a result of the survey, a plan was evolved to arrange centralized sorting plants to which the flow of wood would arrive by truck or by railway.
The system which was developed has six railway stations as secondary terminals for the local transport of wood. These secondary terminals were selected so as to optimize the transport costs for the several areas. Standardized trucks with a payload of 17 to 40 tons are used for transport to these terminals. Wood hen, cling at the terminals is mechanized by means of specialized fork lift trucks. When distances to these secondary terminals are long and the combination of truck and rail too costly, the logs are transported directly by truck to the central terminal which is close to the industries concerned. This terminal (Töva) has two main functions: central storage and supervised sorting of wood, and more efficient transport and handling.
Thus the resources in trucks and the available road system have been combined with the railway to give a most efficient transport service.
All the wood has at some stage to be transported by truck, whether over short or long distances. Because the trucks are the most important link in the chain of transport, a fleet of vehicles has been built up based on tractor trucks in combination with semi-trailers. A truck can be combined with one or two semi-trailers, depending on prevailing conditions. All trucks are equipped with radio communication for better contact with the operating personnel.
From the secondary terminals the logs are transported to the central terminal by rail. Trains of 30 to 40 wagons are loaded and transported to the central terminal where mechanized unloading with fork lift trucks takes place. Rail transport continues throughout the year. All wood is sorted at the central terminal and some wood storage is also necessary, generally for about one month. Transport to the central terminal occurs 6 days a week but from the terminal to the industries there is a continuous flow every day.
All transport from the central terminal to the relevant industries is effected by truck. At the terminal the empty trailer is left for loading while the truck is coupled to a loaded trailer. This operation takes only a few minutes. At industry level the whole unloading operation can be done very quickly, and the truck is not uncoupled but waits until unloading has been carried out.
Most of the trucks are owned by contractors, while the trailers are the property of SCA. This combination of ownership has not caused any trouble, as was feared at a previous stage during the development of the system. The loading and the unloading are performed by SCA at the central terminal and at industry level.
The advantages of this system for wood transport are that the industries receive a continuous flow of sorted wood according to their requirements. The central terminal in this way relieves the industries of sorting and processing work that can function more efficiently on a larger scale elsewhere.
SCA's production of pulp, paper, sawnwood and board is at present about 1.5 million metric tons. Of this quantity, 1 million tons are shipped via the terminal at Tunadal, which handles all production from the Sundsvall and Kramfors areas.
For this traffic operation SCA has designed special trailers for the main products. The trailers are left at the mills and the Tunadal terminal for loading or discharging, which means that the tractor trucks are in continuous operation between the mills and the terminal. In this way these expensive components can be fully utilized in the land transport system. In order to protect the products, primarily paper, the trailers are equipped with a fibreglass hood, a new construction which has been developed by SCA.
The products from the mills at Munksund, kraftliner and sawn timber, are transported to the other terminal of Holmsund by train. This transport system involves many new items. Among other things, specially built railway cars are used. These cars are discharged by a straddle truck which takes half the carload in every lift.
The geographical situation of SCA, with some mills located close to the Arctic Circle and most of the market in central Europe and the United Kingdom, makes the maritime transport of the finished products a very important factor. The total economy of distribution is to a great extent dependent on the methods used for handling the goods.
Distribution costs are also to a very high degree dependent on the pattern of shipping. Under the old system, ships loaded SCA's main products in 25 different ports every year and the products were discharged at about 150 European ports. The result of such a split system was twofold: the transport capacity was reduced and overhead expenses such as port dues, tug costs, pilot dues, etc. were higher. The tonnage of the vessels which were not always suitable for this special type of goods was another factor which limited economic efficiency.
The new distribution system is based on a very limited number of terminals. The products from the plants are transported directly by truck to the nearest terminal for finished products. No storing at the mill is permitted. There is a continuous flow of products from the plants to the terminals which are situated close to the biggest industrial centres.
From these terminals, where the products are first collected, the goods are shipped to three big distribution terminals in Hamburg, Rotterdam, and London. The advantage of this system is that there can be regular and smooth transport all the year round between the terminals in Sweden and those abroad.
The flow of distribution from the overseas terminals to the customer is generally by short-distance transport. This means that it is usually easy to satisfy the customer within a short delivery time - often less than a week. With the old system one of the main problems was to keep the promised time of delivery when sometimes the whole chain of transport was under hard pressure. The time of delivery could very easily be delayed by one or two weeks.
This desire to give the customers short delivery time is very easy to satisfy with this new system. The cost of transport between the terminals in Sweden and those in Hamburg, Rotterdam, and London is also lower.
FIGURE 6. - MS. Tunadal, one of SCA's specially designed vessels.
Both the ships and the facilities of the terminals are designed to suit the handling methods used. These methods are based on the principles of unit-load transport.
All products are arranged as unit loads which can weigh as much as 20 tons. The bales of pulp (each one of them weighing approximately 200 kilogrammes) are handled in unit loads consisting of 64 bales. Every unit load is built up of 8 smaller units. These smaller units, consisting of eight bales, are strapped with a steel band. In the case of newsprint and kraftliner, the unit loads are built up of reels of approximately the same dimensions.
Some goods, especially small-sized material, are collected in 6 metre long containers. These containers can be loaded to a gross weight of 20 tons. Containers are avoided, however, if it is possible to arrange unit loads by strapping or other means. Since the return cargo is very limited, the containers have to be carried empty in one direction, which makes container handling and transport more complicated and expensive than the unit-load system.
Lift trucks usually carry the products from storage at the Swedish terminals, and divide them into units. Straddle trucks bring the unit loads to the quay where ship-based cranes take over the handling.
The three specialized vessels designed for the new distribution system each have a capacity of 11500 tons deadweight. They have five completely open holds with a total cargo volume of 471538 cubic feet. Cargo capacity is 8500 metric tons, of which 1500 tons are stored on deck.
Each vessel is equipped with two 20-ton gantry cranes. These cranes go by rail along the deck and are provided with SCA's lift units. With these cranes and lift units, loading and unloading can be carried out without any manual handling. There are no stevedores in the hold - the crane driver alone catches the unit loads, lifts them on board and places them in the hold.
The lift unit for pulp bales consists of eight electrically operated lift heads, each to lift one strapped unit. The paper rolls do not require strapping. They are lifted with a vacuum clamp, which picks up 6 to 12 rolls depending on their size.
Sawn timber is joined into unit loads consisting of four strapped packages each containing about one standard. These unit loads are lifted by a timber clamp working in the same way as the pulp clamp with the exception that only two lift heads are used. The sawn timber is packed in order to receive protection during the transport from sawmill to customer.
By using this system the net loading rates for the two cranes are 500 tons per hour with pulp, 400 tons per hour with paper and 500 tons per hour with timber. The ships require only 24 hours to load a complete 8500 ton cargo.
The foreign terminals at Rotterdam, London, and Hamburg are built up to enable a quick unloading of the vessels and forwarding of goods to customers. These terminals have the same layout as the Swedish terminals.
Frequent deliveries via the SCA terminals assure customers of a reliable and smoothly flowing delivery service. Users can thus effectively adapt their purchasing and supply schedules to SCA's shipments. Furthermore, the ships are built to deal with severe ice conditions, which means that deliveries can be maintained throughout the year.
The new distribution system also makes it easier for SCA to supervise and safeguard goods; customers obtain better protection for them and there is less risk of damage in transport. Customers can often reduce handling costs in their own factories, since goods can be handled in larger units (strapped cellulose bales, packaged sawn goods) and successive deliveries can be obtained from the overseas terminals.
Results of the new transport system have been encouraging. Many details have still to be modified but the overall design of the system shows that technological revolution in the area of transport will make great strides in the coming decade.
MULTILINGUAL FORESTRY TERMINOLOGY
In July 1968 the seventeenth session of the FAO/IUFRO Committee on Bibliography and Terminology was held at the Bundesforschungsanstalt für Forst-und Holzwirtschaft, Reinbek, Federal Republic of Germany, under the chairmanship of Professor Eino Saari, Finland.
A principal feature of the committee's proceedings was to accept formally as the authorized version the English text of a Multilingual forestry terminology. The work of establishing this version is carried out by the Society of American Foresters in cooperation with the committee; F.C. Ford Robertson of the United Kingdom is director-editor.
The English version should be ready for printing during 1969. Good progress is also being made in the preparation of French, German and Spanish versions. The necessary machinery has been established and finance assured. In order to ensure that the four main languages are treated on an equal basis, in a way compatible with the agreed basis of procedure, the committee decided to reserve a block of Universal Reference Numbers (URNs) for each language. This will allow the various language versions of the terminology to be published separately, the URNs ensuring unequivocal correspondence between concepts in the various terminologies.
The committee also examined and approved a list of bilingual and multilingual glossaries and dictionaries of interest to forestry prepared by the FAO secretariat. This list is to be published in 1969, as also a set of new country sheets bringing up to date the committee's World list of periodicals and serials of interest to forestry, first issued in July 1966.
Professor E. Saari has presided over the activities of this committee since it was first set up in 1949. He has now retired and André Métro (France), a former FAO staff member, has been appointed the new Chairman.
