Around 350 forestry managers, wood transport schedulers, logging contractors, forest owners, harvest planners and major equipment and technology suppliers met up in New Zealand for HarvestTECH. Sources: Timberbiz, HarvestTECH
It was one of the largest gatherings seen in New Zealand and long overdue with the industry moving in and out of lockdown for more than a year. The event was held from 12-14 April in Rotorua.
To capitalise on meeting the annual Forest Safety & Technology 2021 event also ran on the first day at the same venue. The wood harvesting and forest safety events organised by the Forest Industry Engineering Association wrapped up on the Wednesday.
Two days of interactive activities showcased new logging innovations, presentations from contractors and technology leaders as well as comprehensive exhibition areas both inside and outside the venue. These provided a unique opportunity for local harvesting operations to check out an array of new harvesting equipment suited to local conditions. They were able to meet up with industry leaders and innovators in this space.
It wasn’t only the kiwis who attended, but with most international borders closed delegates from Australia, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Finland, Estonia, China, Canada and the USA joined local companies online with the event live streamed for the two days.
HarvestTECH 2021 focussed on advances being made in automated log measurement and scaling, wood tracking, wood transport and log loading innovations, the increasing use of robotics, teleoperation of equipment, the use of new sensors collecting operational and production data and powerful analytics packages that can make use of the collected data to improve logging operations.
