Digital value chains in forest industry

Purpose and goal

The aim of the project was to contribute to increased value creation, sustainability and efficiency in the forest-to-industry value chain through sharing of digital information between different actors. The goal was to form a consortium that supports a common step 2 application. A consortium with in total thirteen organisations of which two research institutes, one university and ten companies are currently supporting the application that is to be handed in before deadline. Thus we mean that the project goals are met.

Expected results and effects

The project has led to a broad discussion about how data could be shared between different actors in the forest industry value chain and the benefits of this. We note a great interest from many actors to contribute to and benefit from a common platform for sharing and visualizing information that is currently "stuck" in the system even though it could make great use if it was made available to others. As the project is still in the planning phase, there is no evidence to evaluate how these intended benefits have been realized.

Planned approach and implementation

The project was built on two workshops with different companies related to the current issue. In addition, a number of Skype meetings were arranged with the companies as well as a number of physical / Skype meetings between staff from the research providers Skogforsk and RISE. The project team chose to go wide with invitations to workshops to capture as much of the needs and benefits to which the project could contribute. The chosen arrangement was effective and provided the opportunity for anchoring and deepening of the idea sufficiently to be able to form a consortium.