Virginia Tech
Sloan Foundation Forest Industries Center
Wood Science and Forest Products
1650 Ramble Road
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0502
540-231-8841
The Sloan Foundation Forest Industries Center at Virginia Tech, the Appalachian Hardwood Center at West Virginia University, and the USDA Forest Service will collaborate to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a web-based virtual community that integrates critical activities that begin in the forest and end at the final production stage of consumer goods. Given the broad range of forest-related supply chains the focus of this initial project is on the wood supply chain for kitchen cabinets in the Appalachian region.
1. "Track the current state value stream" - survey the geographical and temporal movement of solid wood material from the fores, through the various segments of value-added processing, and to the final consumer. Utilize tracking technologies to automatically track performance measures, develop databases and web links to help communicate current-state supply chain performance.
2. "Measure supply chain performance" - forest-to-consumer supply chain performance measures are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of the overall supply chain. The performance measures can be used to scientifically evaluate impact of any proposed future changes made to the value stream.
3. "Create a woods to goods community" - develop a web-based community of forest-to-consumer stakeholders for improving supply chain transparency and cummunicating each other's needs and goals relative to their value stream. This community will be facilitated using internet and web-based technologies.
4. "Promote sustainable forest management" - integrate into the virtual woods-to-goods community a comprehensive set of definitions and examples of sustainable forestry practices - derived from theory and practice - that produce a mix of environmental, social, and economic benefits for landowners and the larger community and ultimately add value to the overall forest-to-consumer supply chain.
supply chain, web-based community, sustainable forest industry development, stustainable forest management, logs to lumber, Virginia, West Virginia
US Forest Service Grant
$ 179,349
Cooperative Funding
$ 180,457
Total
$ 359,806
This project has developed a case study that demonstrates and benchmarks a forest-to-consumer ("woods to goods" or W2G) industry supply chain community. The case study focused on forest industries supporting a kitchen cabinet value stream that is prominent in the Appalachian region of the United States. By tracking the key activities in this value stream, a snapshot of the strengths and weaknesses of current supply chain linkages was developed.
For detailed results of this project, please see the references below.
