DiVISI - Digitalised Value Chains in Forest Industry

Forestry and forest products constitute pillars of the Swedish bio economy and the forest sector contributes to approx. 10 % of net exports. Swedish sawmills are global players, exporting approx. 80 % of the total production of sawn goods. Resource efficiency and profitability throughout the value chains from forest to final customer are prerequisites to maintain sustainable forestry operations. By digitalising important activities in the value chain from forest to sawmill and thus creating a platform for communication of sawmill needs and forest supply, sustainable forest raw materials, as well as forest industries, can be used more effective with less waste.

Currently, efforts are taken to digitalise communication within both forest and forest industry processes, respectively. However, common IT platforms are still lacking to efficiently share and propagate information, both up and down the material flow, within the value chain. This often leads to industry experiencing that they need to “take what the forest can deliver” while timber suppliers experience that sawmills “don’t describe what they need”. If a digital, transparent and standardised exchange of data would be in place, sawmills would have a possibility to efficiently declare raw material needs in better detail so that timber suppliers could meet the needs and declare their deliveries in real-time. Such flow of data also constitutes the basis for making more informed decisions when planning and steering logistics both to industry as well as at industry, quality control of value chain activities and make verified certification of sawn goods possible.

When the digital value chain is fully implemented the participating sawmills anticipate an improved ability to control and plan the production, which will lead to an improvement in value yield corresponding to approx. 10 %, or 50-200 SEK/m³, depending on the product. This will also lead to a better possibility to pay the forest owner, thus creating incentives for the forestry partners to improve their processes.

Open sharing of data throughout the value chain also opens to smaller actors to share and take part of data without having to set up an own digital platform. Evolved communication throughout the value chain is expected to lead to higher efficiency and more value creation, which in time will benefit all actors in the value chain and thus improve the Swedish forest sector’s competitiveness.

The project will develop, test and evaluate a demo function that makes better planning and ordering possible for sawmills as well as timber suppliers and transport organisations. The project will define and make it possible to visualise indicators for production planning and control, including e.g. stock levels, capacities, disturbances and accidents at different places in the whole value chain, from planning of forest activities to sawn logs at the sawmill.

The project will contribute to a more sustainable production where efficiency improvements increase production capacity and thus strengthen the competitiveness and profitability of the forest sector. It is also anticipated that project results will contribute to organisational improvements and developed business models. It will also contribute to a stimulating work environment that can attract and retain competent people. This will in turn lead to development of rural parts of Sweden.