Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 48(4): July 2022 Following the mixed-method contact attempts, 73 companies contacted the research team interested in participating in the study. Of these 73 companies, 26 companies (35.62%) were unable to partake in the study, as they did not meet the inclusion criteria, and 47 companies (64.38%) were retained for the survey. Within the 47 companies, a total of 132 crews were instructed to submit at least 20% of all of their chains or 10 chains (whichever was least) of those that they considered to be at the end of their service life and had planned to retire. The chains were collected over a 6-month study period at a central location and tagged with a unique identification number. The unique identification numbers were used to anonymize the submitter of the chains. In total, 883 chains were submitted by 132 crews. The mean number of chains submitted by each crew was 6.689 chains with a median number of 9 chains and a standard deviation of 2.315. During initial pro- cessing, 243 chains (27.52%) were rejected for being in a broken or altered state where filing would not fix their damage, thus typically necessitating retirement. Rejected chains included those with broken cutters, broken rivets, burred drive links, and rusty chains. These chain conditions were excluded from the study as the maintenance procedures for these issues fall outside the scope of the research project regarding sharpening of chains to continue their functional ser- vice life. Further, in cases where chains were rusty, it was not possible to determine if the rust was the cause of the retirement of the chain or if the chain became rusted during storage before being sent to the research team. As a result, rusty chains were excluded from the study. Data Analysis The chains were distributed among 27 chain saw chain reviewers on the research team that were selected based on continued professional experience with chain saw chain sharpening, including sharpening staff in chain saw dealers/shops. The reviewers were asked to complete a Microsoft Excel (version 2107; Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA) spreadsheet that asked whether the chains could be filed more (answered as “YES” or “NO”) and to estimate how many more times they could be filed. Accuracy of the sharpening projections was stan- dardized using 35 chains that were filed to various wear points. The artificially worn chains were placed at random intervals within the collected chains to be 235 reviewed such that the principal investigator could assure congruency between the various reviewers across the measurements. The initial methodology for review was based on the length in millimeters from the trailing end of the top plate of the cutter to the mean point of the leading edge. However, this was determined to have greater variability in estimated longevity due to difficulties in measuring when there was damage to the side plate cutting edge that would require additional sharpening to remove. Thusly, the adapted method used for this study based retirement on visual inspections which was demonstrated to be a successful comparative method. Included within the visual inspections were the use of depth gauge measuring tools (products sold as “depth gauge” by Stihl® USA] and Husqvarna® [Virginia Beach, VA, [Stockholm, Sweden]—not to be confused with the chain saw chain component) which were used to determine whether the depth gauge was too low to be filed again. If depth gauges were below the tool’s gauge, it was determined that the chain could not be filed further. Because the chains were the source of data and personal information was not solicited from either participants/contributors or reviewers of the chain saw chains, the study doesn’t involve “human partici- pants” and is not included within the scope of research requiring review from a research ethics board (REB) as specified in Article 2.1 of the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (Canadian Institutes of Health Research et al. 2018). Whereas the opinions of the chain saw chain reviewers regarding chain longevity are being recorded, the reviewers are being used as experts in the determination of answers to the research ques- tions about equipment longevity, and their responses are thusly exempt from required review from an REB. Research Question 3 In answering the third research question, this study used geospatial network analyses, the retail prices of chain saw chains, and the cost of professional sharp- ening to build multiple simulated business scenarios (economic models). Economic models provide an overview of aspects of an economic environment applicable to the scenario to be analyzed (Parkin and Bade 2018). For the purposes of this methodology, accounting cost refers to the costs incurred directly (i.e., the cash ©2022 International Society of Arboriculture
July 2022
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