Forest transport payload management in the delivery of efficient forest supply chains

Abstract

This thesis aims to provide a greater understanding around the role and balance of strategic, tactical and operational decisions in the execution of effective payload management in an efficient forestry supply chain. Studies were conducted to explore the role of increased Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW) as the strategic management, reducing tare weight at the tactical level and managing the actual payload of each trip at the operational level.Operation payload management investigated the impact of two weighing technologies (truck and loader installed scales), operated by hired drivers and owner-operators on two route types; gazetted (classified for increased GVW limits) and non-gazetted (standard GVW limits for public roads). On non-gazetted roads the two approaches proved equally effective but when used together appeared to be less effective, while the owner operators appeared to have better management of the payload compared to hired drivers. On the gazetted roads all vehicles were underloaded by roughly the extra payload amount offered by the gazetted routes, which highlights the importance of communication and overall management to ensure payload potential is realised.Tactical management was explored with mill based, legal for trade, weigh bridge data from five companies across Australian forest operations. The research examines tare weights and focuses on opportunities to reduce transportation costs by converting the fleet to the lightest in-fleet tare weights. Focussing on the lowest in-fleet tare weights reduces the risks of the proposed change by avoiding pushing beyond technology and design not already deployed in the fleet. This study identified economic savings in excess of 20% were possible under the modelled scenarios.