GIS-based Decision Support System for Wood Logistics

A wood logistics system was combined with a linear programming (LP) method utilizing GIS-based techniques on the platform of GIS software-ARC/INFO. The combined costs of road and off-road transport were taken as the objective function to find the least cost route and the optimal landing locations of wood transportation. Then transport costs and allowable wood volume of stands were calculated. An LP model was developed to allocate timber resources among mills in order to minimize the wood logistics costs from harvesting sites to mills. The parameters of the LP model, including the transport costs, allowable wood volume and wood orders, were written into a text file in MPS format which were then accessed by LINDO to solve the LP problem. The system is an effective tool to manage logistics, information and funds together in order to increase the speed of wood logistics and reduce the cost. The benefits and efficiency of mill cluster can be improved. The focal firm in the cluster can be competitive.