trends in productivity over the day's work in Southern Italy forestry yard

The purpose of this work was to analyse the changes in labour productivity performance in a forestry yard over the day taking into the account the specialisation of the workers, the organization of the yard and the respect or safety devices during the operation of filling and equipping wood. The trials were done in a high forest oak. It has been created a circular fixed area plot, including the plants to fell, and were measured the diameter, the height and the volume of each tree of that area. At the beginning of the working day have been collected information about workers. The working time of the yard forestry were reported during the stages of felling, limbing and bucking-cut in three different moments of the day. In terms of the organization of machineries and workers, in the yard there were not a tirfor, a wince and forest tractor. The results showed an effective organization of the job thanks to a rational alternation of the workers which guaranteed a good level of labour productivity performance. Even if the break of few minutes at the end of each hour didn’t decrease enough the level of fatigue connected to the use of a chain saws. Concerning the trend in productivity of the yard during the work day it was clear that after the lunch the productivity decreased about of 15 %. Moreover, during the trials we registered a poor use of any personal protective equipment (PPE).