Assessing work order information quality in harvesting

• Main Author: Gustafsson, Åsa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Finnish Society of Forest Science 2017-01-01
• Series: Silva Fennica
• Online Access: https://www.silvafennica.fi/article/6989

Being 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 âCleaning under story trees â not conductedâ and âCleaning under story trees â of low standardâ as well as âLanding â sizeâ, and âLanding â placementâ. However, their effect on capacity is utilization needs to be explored.