Emphasis on transport infrastructure to cater for future growth
The Victorian Government has recognised a crucial need to upgrade roads and transport infrastructure to cater for a growing forestry and timber industry, including the introduction of high productivity freight vehicles. According to Government details, an estimated additional 138,000 semi-trailers (equivalent to 93,000 B-doubles) are expected to join the annual current estimated 90,000 truck movements into the Port of Portland alone.
Improvements to the freight system were included in the Victorian Timber Industry Strategy (VTIS) announced late in December.
Get a piece of the road transport action at Trucks in Action
It’s on again at Lardner Park, the only working truck show held in the Southern Hemisphere. Running in conjunction with the Civil Works Expo, Trucks In Action will be held at Lardner Park near Warragul in Victoria from 19-21 February.
Growing interest in International Year of Forests
In a bid to bolster efforts that will promote sustainable management, conservation and development of forests worldwide, the United Nations General Assembly has declared 2011 the International Year of Forests.
Forests are an integral part of global sustainable development: forest-related economic activities affect livelihoods of 1.6 billion people worldwide; they provide socio-cultural benefits and are the foundation for indigenous knowledge; and as ecosystems, forests play a critical role in mitigating the effects of climate change and protecting biodiversity.
Logistics and operations innovations being used in the wood supply chain
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 and shifting product demand have all created significant pressures on forestry and wood products companies to reduce costs and to 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.
Wood Supply Chain Optimisation 2010 is a technology series being set up for the Australasian forest products sector. It runs in Melbourne 19-20 May and again in Rotorua for New Zealand forest products companies 24-25 May.
