No abstract

No abstract

The use of social media as a marketing tool has increased significantly in recent years. However, limited information is available regarding social media use in the US forest products industry or social media adoption at the organizational level, especially within the business-to-business context. This study presents part two of a two-part series of articles that look at the forest products industry in the digital age. A mail survey was conducted in 2013 to examine factors affecting the use of social media in the US forest products industry. This article also looks at the perception of forest products companies regarding social media effectiveness and identifies challenges faced by the forest products companies regarding social media use. Results show that close to 58 percent of respondents currently use some form of social media. The most common social media tool implemented was Facebook. Respondents' adoption of social media was influenced by company age, net sales revenue, product type, Web site content, perceived importance of e-commerce, and perceived ease of use of social media as a marketing tool. About 94 percent of the respondents thought that social media was an effective tool for marketing. Although no major concerns were expressed regarding the use of social media, there was some concern about generating the return on investment to cover the costs associated with social media use. The information collected from this study can be used in assisting the forest products industry in understanding the world of social media marketing and developing an effective social media marketing strategy.

The use of trade or firm names in this publication is for reader information and does not imply endorsement by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) of any product or service.The USDA prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and where applicable, sex, marital status, familial status, parental status, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, political beliefs, reprisal, or because all or a part of an individual's income is derived from any public assistance program. AbstractDecay can cause significant damage to high-value hardwood timber. New nondestructive evaluation (NDE) technologies are urgently needed to effectively detect incipient decay in hardwood timber at the earliest possible stage. Currently, the primary means of inspecting timber relies on visual assessment criteria. When visual inspections are used exclusively, they provide no indication of the extent of internal deterioration that may exist in timber. In this study, time-of-flight, stress-wave tomography, and micro-drilling resistance methods were investigated for locating incipient decay in sugar maple logs. We found that the capability of the single-path time-of-flight method for decay detection is very limited, and the method can be used only to identify logs and trees with moderate and severe decay. Resistance-based detection of decay (including early stages) is effective if the resistance drilling device is oriented so that its path goes through the decay zone; however, orienting the drill through the decay is difficult to guarantee. A multi-sensor stress-wave device can overcome the path-dependent detection issue. Results from laboratory testing indicate that the eight-sensor twodimensional stress-wave device has good potential for assisting in the detection of incipient decay in roundwood, such as logs and standing timber. However, to more effectively locate early-stage decay within a hardwood timber, more sensors should be added to the measurement system to obtain a higher resolution two-dimensional tomography image of a cross section. Field studies on standing hardwood timber should further investigate the effectiveness of these NDE methods with improved systems and procedures. This research could benefit field foresters and managers in using NDE technologies to assess the health condition of hardwood timber in the forest and could potentially lead to significant economic savings.

This publication provides a broad spectrum of information on the hardwood veneer industry in North America. Veneer manufacturers and their customers impose guidelines in specifying wood quality attributes that are very discriminating but poorly defined (e.g., exceptional color, texture, and/or figure characteristics). To better understand and begin to define the most important attributes that distinguish veneer logs from sawlogs, and high-end from low-end veneer logs, we visited and interviewed veneer log buyers and sellers, veneer manufacturers, and veneer sales personnel. The first section of this report provides information on the demographics of the hardwood veneer industry and domestic and export market influences on veneer manufacturing. This is followed by a discussion of: 1) veneer quality requirements for different product markets, 2) veneer log quality evaluation procedures, 3) veneer log procurement systems, 4) regional variations in veneer log quality characteristics, and 5) species-specific quality requirements and issues.