Broad-based machinery programme as Volvo focuses on the forest industry

“Our ambition is to be able to offer total machinery concepts for specific industries,” explains Jukka Moisander, Director, Global Forestry Solutions at Volvo. “With the felling machines we’re developing now, we are starting to approach that ambition in the forest industry segment.” Felling and off-road transport are the areas Volvo is now focusing on in order to offer a total machinery solution to the forest industry. “On the felling side we have a lot of exciting developments going on. We have traditionally had quite a lot of tracked harvesters and we also have access to a unique levelling method and newly developed feller/bunchers.”
On the transport side the exciting electric hybrid El-Forest is being developed, with Volvo as a part-owner of the project since 2007.

“The El-Forest is a good example of a development that Volvo is pleased to be involved in: it is innovative, an efficiency improvement and has a clear environmental benefit.” Fuel efficiency interesting for all machines The electric hybrid technology in the El-Forest is based on using a small diesel engine to run a generator, which supplies electricity via batteries to the electric motors located in each of the forwarder’s six wheels. The method saves on fuel.

“Hybrid technology is interesting and we have also been able to use it in development projects for Volvo wheel loaders and Volvo trucks,” Moisander explains. “The technology saves a lot of fuel in machines that are constantly accelerating and braking.”
So far the El-Forest has been exhibited as a concept machine and first pre-series machine. How will it appear at Elmia Wood?
“We will exhibit the machine as a production model. And that’s just the beginning of our long-term investment in felling machines.”

Total solutions at the Volvo stand

Otherwise the Volvo stand will reflect the company’s complete solution for forest operations: machines for building forest tracks, felling, transport, and timber handling at sawmills and pulp mills and in bioenergy contexts. “A significant proportion of the forest industry’s machines, raw materials and finished products are transported by Volvo trucks on the roads,” Moisander says. “We are now taking steps to complement this range of transport solutions by turning off the paved roads, onto the forest tracks and out into the forest itself.”

He sees the greatest potential for these total concepts in the “new” forestry nations. “In the Nordic region the market is mature and the forest industry is mechanised. Of course even here the industry can benefit greatly by getting everything from one single supplier, but the biggest potential is in countries where the forest industry is currently being built up. There we find great demand for complete solutions.”