Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Today, a large proportion of wood supplied for the Swedish forest industry is bought from private forest owners while forest companies at the same time provide the forest owners with services such as logging services and transportation. Today, forest companies work extensively with keeping the time used for transport and logging short. But what does the private forest owners think about the time required for the timber deal, also called lead time, and the different parts of the timber deal.
In this thesis, the forest owners’ perception of the different lead times in their contracts with Stora Enso and their communication with the purchasers is examined. Systematic metrics for the time used for the different parts of the timber deal is identified and suggestions for improving the customer satisfaction are presented.
The study was carried out through a data analysis, a questioner survey and interviews. The data analysis examined the contracts that Stora Enso signed with private forest owners and identified different parts of the timber deal. The questioner survey was directed towards the forest owners and mapped the forest owners’ expectations and perception, through an established service quality theory (Gap-theory). The interviews were conducted with officials at Stora Enso and aimed to produce proposals for improvement.
In the data analysis three parts of the timber deal were identified: 1) from signing of the contract until thinning, 2) from thinning until finishing of transportation and 3) from finishing of transportation until final account of the contract.
The questioner study revealed that the majority of the forest owners felt that Stora Enso was exceeding their expectations considering the lead time and that 14-18,5 % of the forest owners felt that Stora Enso was not living up to their expectations. Systematic metrics for the different parts of the timber deal resulted suggestions for a maximal time use of 8 months for part 1, 4 weeks for part 2 and 4 weeks for part 3.
The interviews resulted in several proposals for improvement. One of the proposals was to improve the purchaser’s communication with the rest of the organization considering the forest owners’ expectations as well as the communication towards the forest owners considering the time required for the different lead times. In addition to this, it was revealed that a better focus from the transportations department towards private forest owners could increase the customer satisfaction.