Evaluating Efficiency of Forest-Trees Felling Motor-Manual Groups Using Data Envelopment Analysis Method in West of Mazandaran Province

The efficiency of motor-manual groups in process of felling trees is less than expected in some utilization groups, which indicates the needs for improving the performance of these groups. The first step of the efficiency improvement is the evaluation of the current ‎status of these groups. In this study, the felling groups were randomly ‎selected in 12 gropes from the forests of West Mazandaran. Each group included 2 and 3 operator (a total of 24 groups). The characteristics of each group (the number of people, system cost, chainsaw hours-of-operation and the cutting wood volume) were collected for three working days. The required diagrams (number of felled trees, the cutting wood volume, system cost, hours of operation and chainsaw hours-of-operation) were prepared and investigated by GAMS software. The number of people, system cost, chainsaw hours-of-operation as well as the cutting wood volume was designed as input and output variables, respectively. The data were also analysed through data envelopment analysis (DEA). The DEA results indicated that the effectiveness of managerial, technical and inductive were 0/9215, 0/8016, and 0/8671 respectively.