Joining up optimisation of wood supply chains with forest management: a case study of North Karelia in Finland

Abstract

This paper presents a spatially explicit methodology for integrated forest management and wood supply chain optimization over time in the context of a Finnish forest strategy anticipating new investments and renewal of business in the wood processing industry. The Finnish MELA simulator was used to generate multiple treatment schedules over time at the management unit level – each treatment schedule providing unique estimates of extracted wood volumes by different assortment categories for each time period. The J linear programming (LP) software was used to analyse different regional forest strategies in terms of wood supply and transportation costs to multiple market destinations. The analysis revealed clear differences both in wood flows and forest resources between strategies maximizing wood supply or optimizing wood supply to market destinations. In addition, the wood flows appeared responsive to new mill and increased demand. Further, the changes in factory price had a heavier impact on pulpwood supply than on sawlog supply. The same methodology can be applied for analysing the impact of new factories on wood flows from forest to factories and between factories or to support forest enterprises in planning their wood supply over multiple time periods and multiple destinations.