Enhancing forestry supply chain through innovative integration of digital tools and techniques

Internationally forestry and wood products supply chains are being transformed. This traditionally resource intensive low technology sector is moving rapidly towards precision-manufacturing, advanced technology use and innovation in ways that increase the value and sustainability of wood within the emerging bio-economy. This research-in-progress reports on a major Australian Research Council funded applied industry based program integrating different digital tools and techniques along the forestry supply chain to improve product traceability, characterisation and knowledge management to stimulate and support market innovation. The paper provides insight into contemporary forest supply chains and illustrates the breadth of research being undertaken in this program. A specific example involving the innovative use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and digital telemetry to advance the speed and accuracy of forestry resource assessments is described. Preliminary results comparing manual and automated techniques for inventory estimation appear positive. Planned next steps for this project and the program are presented.