Supply Chain Planning of Harvest and Transportation Operations after the Storm Gudrun

The storm Gudrun hit southern Sweden in January 2005 and approximately 70 million cubic meters of forest was wind felled. Existing logistic planning at forest companies in the storm damaged area had to be changed over night. There was a direct shortage in both harvest and transportation capacities. Key questions that arose were which terminals to use, where to harvest, where to store and which transportation modes (truck, train, ship) to use. In this paper, we describe how the forest company, Sveaskog, made use of Operations Research (OR) as an important decision support in their supply chain planning in the aftermath of the storm. The necessary development of the support was carried out quickly and the OR models and methods enabled efficient and detailed re-planning continuously as more accurate information about supply and new customers became available.