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8 Abstract
The use of supply chain management is of increasing importance in the wood
industry. The overall wood-flow starts with standing trees in forests and continues
with harvesting, bucking, sorting, transportation to terminals, sawmills, pulp mills,
paper mills and heating plants, conversion into products like pulp, paper, lumber and
ends at different customers. 237 Co-ordinating this wood-flow is important for the
effectiveness of the whole supply chain “wood” as there is a pressure to reduce costs,
expand globally, introduce new products fast and increase service levels. This paper
analyses the supply chain of the Austrian wood industry and their sub-branches
sawmilling industry, wood working industry, panel industry and paper industry.
Within the framework of a study, carried out in co-operation with the Association of
the Austrian Wood Industries and the Institute of Transport Economics and Logistics
(Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration), companies of the
Austrian wood industry had been asked about their procurement and distribution
policies and important characteristics. Based on these results this paper aims to show
potentials for further improvements.
One significant result is the fact that stocks are rather high and lead to high capital
costs. Supply chain management helps to reduce stocks and stock costs through a
better collaboration of all supply chain partners and introduction of supply chain
management systems like EDI. Another possibility to control the so-called bullwhipeffect
responsible for high stocks is to reduce uncertainty through centralising
information. It is also recommended to pursue an “everyday low pricing”-strategy.
The study also focuses on the high lead times in this branch and shows how to reduce
them. Furthermore, there are potentials for improvement with reference to the
significant deficits in communication. Only little information about demand and
stocks is forwarded to other supply chain partners in the wood industry. The
introduction of a supply chain management would improve the information and
knowledge management in this supply chain. The paper also deals with a
simplification, synchronisation and automation of processes in this branch.
This study aims to offer all participating companies a possibility for benchmarking
and to make them aware of the necessity of supply chain management.
237 Vgl. Carlsson/Rönnqvist (2004), S 589.
XLVI