Assessing work order information quality in harvesting

Abstract

Highlights• This paper concludes that information quality with regards to accuracy in work order information components pertaining to "Landing -placement and size", "Cleaning understory trees -not conducted and of low standard", are lacking and need to be improved in harvesting. AbstractBeing a logging contractor involves several uncertainties, amongst others, information quality in the work order received from customers. The information quality of work orders is of the utmost importance for logging contactors, in order to be able to plan and conduct work properly. The purpose of this paper is three-fold: 1) identifying work order information components in harvesting, 2) identifying work order information quality dimensions in harvesting and 3) assessing work order information quality in harvesting. The paper is based on interviews and a survey. Various interviews took place in Sweden with professionals within the harvesting industry as well as logging contractors, and thereafter a survey was developed. Random selection was conducted and 100 Swedish logging contractors were contacted by telephone in order to answer the survey, with a response rate of 82% from the sample. The paper concludes that the information quality dimension of accuracy concerns the individual work order information components, whereas timeliness is related to receiving the complete work orders. A factor analysis has been conducted with five factors emerging. The assessment of work order information quality in harvesting implies that the potential for improvement exists with regard to increasing the accuracy of the order information for the components of "Cleaning under story trees -not conducted" and "Cleaning under story trees -of low standard" as well as "Landing -size", and "Landing -placement". However, their effect on capacity is utilization needs to be explored.

Key drivers and obstacles for performance among forest harvesting service contractors – a qualitative case study from Sweden

“…For instance, work order information of insufficient quality or that was delivered just before harvesting execution was perceived to drive contractors' adaptability performance but hinder their delivery performance, which instead was driven by the economy factor. This provides more support to earlier studies' identification of timely and reliable work order information as important for contractor profitability and satisfaction as well as for customer satisfaction Gustafsson 2017).…”

“…A contractor can only deliver a requested service if the customer cooperates and provides them with the means to do so. For instance, the accuracy of the provided work order information will enable the contractor to plan and conduct the harvesting operation properly (Gustafsson 2017). In other words, reliable, up-to-date information from the customer will allow the contractor to plan the work well and avoid problematic issues.…”

Logging Contractors’ Growth in the Southern Cone: An Analysis of Contractor Business Strategies, Innovation, and Mechanization

“…Commonly, forestry has a close interdependence of contractors and customers in most of the countries where this activity is important [8,13,15]. Mäkinen [16] applied the Porter's competitive strategies and found that successful contractors of Finland showed a very long-term relationship with a client-up to 20 years-a good use of operational capability, and not too large an operating radius.…”

How Human Resources Management Practice And Change Management Contribute To The Small Medium Enterprises Performance

“…According to (Yin, 2003)with using Within Case Analysis and Across Case Analysis it could get the ability to explore the subunits that are located within larger case. The analysis should be easy to understand to fulfil the research purpose, and the benefit of those analyses make deeper understanding of the exploring objects/issues (Gustafsson A., 2017) Research analysis will be conducted in 2 steps, first is to analyse the In-depth Interview using Within Case Analysis and Across Case Analysis regarding to Change Management and Talent Management issues, and second is to prove the desire of SMEs in Growth and Development by Analyse the Questionnaires, so the solution will be more specific about the issues and the SMEs' desires. In addition to interviews, this research also used a Questionnaire.…”