Using Conjoint Analyses to Improve Cable Yarder Design Characteristics: An Austrian Yarder Case Study to Advance Cost-Effective Extraction

Round  1

Reviewer 1 Report

The subject of this paper falls within the scope of the Journal. The paper is indeed most interesting: tackling with the difficult issue of making decisions based on multiple (and often conflicting) criteria is always a worthwhile endeavor, and the Authors clearly follow a most promising intuition. They also show a strong competence with the subject of cable yarding and the methods applied. All in all, the subject is a strategic one, the approach is innovative and the research is conducted with much competence. For these reasons, I recommend publication after minor revisions. In particular, I bring to the attention of the Authors the following (minor) issues:

Title. The title is good, but it does not clearly indicate that the main goal of this paper is to define the most promising European cable yarder concepts for Australasia, with a view to introducing Austrian technology to this Region. I believe this should be stated upfront - possibly in the title - to avoid confusion. Early clarification of this crucial aspect would help readers to better understand, for instance, why specific Koller models are compared with theoretical traditional models...

Introduction. Also good, but puts a strong emphasis on safety, which is then completely excluded from the criteria being analyzed. For this reason, I would include - but tone down - many of the considerations made about safety in the introduction, since safety is no longer mentioned after that...

L54. I am not sure about this statement, which is later contradicted at L321

L60-68. Correct, but then the technology explored later on in the paper generally requires manual felling, or at least choker setting...

L74-77. A comparative statement (...higher...than other industries) would require that the fatality rates for other industries are also reported. I suggest making one's life easier and just say "high injury and fatality rates", without any comparisons (unless the Authors prefer to spend time on finding figures for other safer industries...)

L79-81. This statement actually seems to indicate that steep terrain logging is safer than flat terrain logging (50% of the production and 40% of the accidents). I suggest rephrasing and clarifying (or deleting)...

L86-88. Consistency in tenses (were...are...)

L115-117. Not to mention increased roll-over risk

L118-132. It seems to me that this concept was already expressed earlier on...

L137. "...some may take years". Unclear: please rephrase

L141-142. This statement is true, but a bit abrupt. Unless the reader is informed earlier on about the Technosteep project, its team and its goals, it seems like a stand-alone statement, weakly related to anything that was said before and after...

L145. It could be useful to explain why this method was used. This is not the only method for analytical decision making (see AHP, for instance) and therefore the Authors had several choices. It would be relevant to explain why this one choice was made...

L148-149. Is this relevant? I suppose it is, only if the scope of the project is described...

L214-245. Do we need this? We already have Table 1, and describing the larger pool out of which the 7 attributes were extracted may bring limited benefit, at the cost of an unduly long manuscript...

L249. As it stands, Table 1 is quite unwieldy. My suggestion is to restructuring it by removing the column "Description" to create a lighter version of the same. The current version (with Description") could still be attached as an Appendix.

L253. On what basis were these eight scenarios developed? Please clarify. Also, the mix of actual models (the Kollers) and theoretical concepts (PO1, PO2, PRO) is puzzling, unless the context of the project is presented upfront.

L260-298. Lengthy and unbalanced (lots of data for the Kollers, much less for the theoretical concepts). I suggest collapsing this description and making it more balanced...as it stands, it really seems that you want to explore the market chances of 5 Koller models in the Australasian market, which is a legitimate goal for market research, but should be brought on a more theoretical plane when it comes to scientific research. Just a matter of presentation...

L313-321. Maybe it would be more interesting to know the professional and geographical distribution of the 14 respondents, than for the 25 invited...

L373-392. Is this needed? If so, it should go into Materials and Methods, not Discussion...but in general, it seems to me that this whole paragraph strays off the main narrative and weakens the focus of the discussion.

L431-441. I am not sure this is the right way to address the main limitation of the study, which is the small number of respondents. I feel that a study limitation statement should be a matter of fact description of the limitations and of their potential effect on the paper, not an apology of why one could not do better than one did. Besides, the main justification about the small pool of potential respondents seems weak, in the face of a previous statement that indicated to 300 the number of yarders in NZ (and more in Australia). So, either the decision to buy all these machines is in the hands of a few dozen people (and if so, that would definitely deserve discussion) or the pool might have been larger. If a justification must be brought forward, that would be with the method itself, which is complicated and requires much time and good will from the respondents (which the Authors said). So, my suggestion is to cut the part about the small pool and simply say that the number was small, but not smaller than used in similar validated studies (precedent), and that the coefficients seemed to indicate good reliability of the results (consequence).

L480-481. Only needed if you describe the project as a whole.

Author Response

Reviewer’s comments were upload as Word file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Review:

Using conjoint analyses to determine new cable yarder design characteristics for improving cost effective extraction on steep terrain

General:

·        Topic of paper represents a contribution in this sector. Not enough is written about cable systems.

·        There is some confusion as to whether this paper is trying to be a “methods” paper on the use of conjoint analysis. The limitations section in the Discussion suggests that is the intent of the authors. Need to be explicit on this issue.

·        Given the small sample size, this paper should be presented as a case study

·        Need to define what it meant by steep terrain so readers are on same “sheet of music”.

·        The introduction relies heavily on background from New Zealand, with only one short paragraph on Australia. If Australia must be included, you need more balance in the intro.

·        The discussion and conclusions need to make a better link to the study results and the issues discussed in the introduction such as the importance of the mountain economy and the safety issues associated with cable yarding on steep slopes.

Specific items:

Line 37: forests play role in mountain economies – need reference

Line 49: this paragraph is confusing, please re-write; what do you mean on line 54 “outside Europe, only little is known about those efforts

Line 69: need reference to support this section on plantings in the 1990s; need more information on species, area, projected volume ready for harvest

Line 75: this is a general fatality rate across all landscapes; any fatality and injury rates linked to steep terrain?

Line 148: “in a further step, the system prototype . . .” not necessary

Line 166: Figure 1 adds nothing to the paper; it is convoluted and does not add to understanding the decision making process – please remove

Line 248: Table 1 – small item, does anyone even use non slack-pulling carriages anymore?

Also on carriage capacity please provide a reference for your tonnage categories for carriage lift capacity

Line 260: why do the authors provide prices on PO1 and PO2 models, but not on the Koller models?

Line 313: This paragraph is written in passive voice, making it confusing; clearly state in active voice who replied to the survey and their associated characteristics; it is my understanding you had 14 respondents (very low N); how many from N. Zealand? How many from Australia? Please be clear.

Line 337: The methods need to clearly articulate how attribute weight and single attribute score are calculated in Table 2

Line 368: With only 14 responses, need to acknowledge small sample size in the discussion and couch results as a case study

Line 430: The Limitations section does acknowledge the small sample size. This is good. The section suggests the author intentions were to provide a methods paper on conjoint analysis.

Line 436: Why suggest to expand the sample beyond the chosen research topic?

Line 456: The conclusions section is redundant to what was just stated in section 4.2.

Author Response

Response to reviewer’s comments were upload as Word file.

English grammar check was made by English native speakers.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round  2

Reviewer 2 Report

For the most part, the authors have addressed my concerns.

I am not sure why they insist that Figure 1 is important. I still maintain that it is a distraction and add nothing to the paper.

Author Response

We deleted Figure1 but we added a reference where the figure was taken from.

English check was made by native speakers.

Now the paper should be ready for publication.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx