Designing and managing agile wood supply systems to maximize value-extraction from procurement areas in Canadian forests

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Wood Supply Systems (WSSs) are complex structures composed of business entities (entrepreneurs, mills, public stakeholders, clients), planning processes, and coordination mechanisms. They generate information, material and financial flows. The scope of WSS spans from procurement (i.e. acquisition and harvesting) from commercial forest stands to delivery at demand sites (mills). WSSs are compelled to adapt to uncertainty on the demand side, and the lack of predictability of volumes and raw material characteristics on the supply side. Managers want flexibility in supply but remain risk averse. They want WSSs that are robust to variations in aspects such as the cost and location of harvest, species mix, mill capacity to use wood of given species, size, and quality. The development of a logistics system that can meet these expectations requires exploring agility characteristics and enablers. There is a cost to agility, and it must not be seen as an objective but as a means to system performance. Thus, the WSSs must have the adequate level of agility to cope and adapt to the uncertainty caused by unpredictable aspects, and mitigate their impact on harvest sustainability. This requires the implementation of advanced systems for collaborative production planning and scheduling with a clear concern for strategic issues. Based on the solid foundation of my existing research, the proposed program will therefore focus on applying systems engineering approaches to achieve concordance between agility levels and operational environment in the Canadian forest operations context. ***The long-term objective of the proposed program is to develop a coherent planning and coordination framework that combines collaboration structures with interconnected forest planning optimization models. Three specific objectives are to be achieved: 1) Propose and assess supply planning processes to outline the array of options for developing agile WSS, and to construct a platform capable of evaluating the long-term impact of each option; 2) Develop a methodology to reduce the vulnerability of the WSS to unpredictability in supply and to uncertainty in market conditions, and identify the optimal level of agility; and 3) identify capacities associated with Industry 4.0 paradigm that could resolve collaboration roadblocks identified in WSS shared operations.***This program will contribute to the training of three HQPs (2 PhD, 1 MSc). Students with advanced degree in the development and application of operations research methods in natural resources can expect excellent career opportunities.