Wood Supply Chain Conference

This technology programme targeted key decision makers from forestry and wood products companies in New Zealand and Australia. It provided long overdue and practical updates on innovations, strategies and technologies that are being used by forest products companies to improve planning, logistics and operations within the wood supply chain.

Close to 250 forestry transport, logistics and wood flow specialists from throughout Australasia were involved in this technology series. The programme covered;

Analysis of successful international models for supply chain optimisation
Optimising value recovery through improved harvesting systems
Remote sensing and real-time tracking of logs and wood products
Innovative systems that integrate planning, operations, harvesting & sales
Materials handling, packaging, freight forwarding and distribution developments
Key issues facing the freight, shipping and transport industries
Radio frequency and electronic identification technologies
The latest international trends in logistics and supply chain management.

How was the technology series designed?

Wood Supply Chain Optimisation 2010 was a technology series that designed with a wide cross section of forestry, logistics and research specialists from the Australasian forest products sector. It ran in Melbourne on 19-20 May 2010 and again in Rotorua for New Zealand forest products companies on 24-25 May 2010.

The 2010 technology series built on two very well supported programmes; Value Chain Optimisation that ran in Rotorua and Melbourne in 2007 and the Forest Industry Strategic Summit which was run in New Zealand in 2008 which focused on improving Wood Supply Chain Competitiveness.

Background to Wood Supply Chain Optimisation 2010

As physically remote countries, the quality of New Zealand and Australia’s international supply chains have a significant impact on the ability of companies to compete in global markets. The structure of the supply chain has been a major issue for the forest products sector in maintaining its international competitiveness. Volatile wood fibre costs, increasing energy prices, increasing freight rates and shifting product demand have all created significant pressures on forestry and wood products companies to reduce their costs and take advantage of demand opportunities.

In Australasia the supply chain tends to be horizontal rather than vertically stratified between each of the major players; forest owners, wood processors, manufacturers and distributors. As a result, there is a high degree of separation between each of these operations. Rather than maximising the overall net return to each company, companies look to access margins at each stage of the supply chain. The result is an overall process that’s maximising returns and a fragmented industry with few end-to end supply chain participants.

In 2010 with increasing pressures on the profitability of forest products companies, domestic and global markets are requiring more sophisticated approaches to the every-day routines of manufacturing and doing business. Sourcing and purchasing materials, manufacturing products, and getting them to market means companies are looking much more closely at solutions to make supply chain improvements.

Wood Supply Chain Optimisation 2010 detailed successful strategies that have been developed and adopted to improve planning, logistics and operations through the wood supply chain.

Further information

Full details along with the opportunity to order the proceedings from the 2010 series can be found on the Post Event Details page of this site. An update on how these tools are being used operationally for forestry companies in both countries will be run in 2013.