Optimization of operational level transportation planning in forestry: a review

ABSTRACT

Transportation of forest products accounts as a major contributor to the total operational costs; hence, its optimization has become an important aspect in supply chain planning. Transportation optimization at the operational level includes decisions related to product flow, storage, pre-processing, and routing and scheduling of vehicles. The decisions and constraints in the model depend on the type of product that is transported. Earlier review articles on forest transportation optimization focused only on log transportation, while in this review paper, products such as logs, biomass, pulp and furniture are considered and their similarities and differences are highlighted. Most of the previous studies focused on optimizing the total cost of transportation, while environmental aspects of truck routing and scheduling in forestry were not considered. Uncertainties in parameters such as supply and demand quantities and transportation time were not explored fully in the models. In addition to storage and truck routing and scheduling, considering pre-processing (e.g. sorting, grinding, blending, bucking) decisions at forest sites, satellite yards and the mills in the models could be done in future studies. It is important that aspects related to truck configuration, type and capacity be considered in the models as there is limited accessibility of large trucks such as large chip vans to forest sites. Management practices such as just-in-time production and vendor-managed inventory systems could be considered in forest supply chain planning. Using big data and business analytics techniques are other new trends that could improve decision-making related to logistics and transportation planning in forestry.

KEYWORDS:

• Transportation
• forest products supply chain
• optimization
• mathematical programming

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the financial support provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Discovery Research Grant RGPIN-2014-04758) to conduct this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Resources and Engineering Council of Canada [RGPIN-2014-04758].