Wood Flow Management for Adjusting Lead Time and Improving Delivery Precision: A Systematic Literature Review

In the forest industry, the challenge of harmonizing raw-material supply with market demand persists due to fluctuating customer orders and the inability of the producers to adapt production promptly. For supply managers, producing wood efficiently and cost-effectively while simultaneously satisfying the orders in a reasonable lead time is challenging. The Wood Supply Chain (WSC) comprises four core activities: procurement, production, distribution, and sales. Separate business units often carry out these principal activities. Wood procurement involves purchasing, harvesting, transportation, and inventory functions. Wood flow management starts with fiber procurement, followed by harvesting, and ends with delivery to a mill yard. The main complexity stems from supply uncertainty arising from the natural diversity of forests, seasonality, and fluctuating market demand. This project focused on identifying strategies for wood flow management. We have identified strategies to improve supply visibility, facilitating the alignment of sales commitments with available wood supply. Through a review of the literature using a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) approach, we outlined a comprehensive scheme for deploying strategies to manage and control lead times in WSC.