Multimodal strategies for greener and more robust wood supply

While seasonal mill consumption is often constant, supply chain risks and seasonal irregularities in wood harvest and transport are significant challenges for wood supply management in many regions of Europe. Given the wide variety of market, infrastructure, and climate conditions between regions, there is a need for an integrated framework for modeling and analysis of efficiency and resilience to supply chain risks. At the same time, increasing occurrences of natural disturbances such as windstorms require an increased buffer capacity. In this context, innovative multimodal systems via rail and sea terminals offer the potential to increase buffer capacity and reduce fossil fuel emissions. The objective of the project is therefore to establish an integrated framework for testing multimodal innovations for greener and more resilient wood supply in Northern and Central Europe, delivered as a supply chain simulation model for participatory evaluation and implementation of new developed strategies. The research approach starts with a broad initial mapping to establish common frameworks for regional analyses of supply operations which then quantify parameters for the integrated supply chain simulation model. The project has three work packages. These include: WP1. Supply chain mapping; focusing on mapping typical supply chain disruption patterns, system elements and management processes for multimodal roundwood transport. WP2. Supply operations analysis; focusing on developing a common framework for analysis of organization-level irregularities in harvesting production and multimodal transport, as well as the driving factors behind these irregularities. WP3. Supply chain modeling and participatory evaluation; focusing on developing a supply chain simulation model for testing multimodal innovations with a participatory evaluation of strategies to cope with supply chain risks. In addition to a comprehensive cataloging of regional challenges and multimodal system capacities and management processes, the key deliverable from the project is a new virtual environment enabling manager involvement in testing, analysis and evaluation of relatively complex multimodal systems. Collaborative chain control strategies will be adapted and tested in the participatory simulation to apply advanced supply chain risk management for greater resilience.