Forest Harvest Scheduling with Endogenous Road Costs

Ross, Kai; Tóth, Sándor; Jaross, Weikko S.

doi:10.1287/inte.2017.0926

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Possible reference may also be made to the “endogenous fixed charge problem” in Ross (2016 , p. 1 and pp. 9–11) and Ross et al. (2018 , pp.…”

Section: Model Formulation and Linking Framework For Optimizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…267–268). Here, harvest and road reconstruction scheduling decisions are integrated, making “…the revenue and cost structure of the problem endogenous.” ( Ross et al., 2018 , p. 260). Shavarani (2019) proposes a multi-level facility location problem to determine the best network design for post-disaster humanitarian relief distribution.…”

Section: Model Formulation and Linking Framework For Optimizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Making better decisions by applying mathematical optimization to cost accounting: An advanced approach to multi-level contribution margin accounting

Gutiérrez

2021

Heliyon

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The purpose of multi-level contribution margin accounting in cost accounting is to analyze the profitability of products and organizational entities with appropriate allocation of fixed costs and to provide relevant information for short-term, medium- and longer-term decisions. However, the conventional framework of multi-level contribution margin accounting does not usually incorporate a mathematical optimization method that simultaneously integrates variable and fixed costs to determine the best possible product mix within hierarchically structured organizations. This may be surprising in that operations research provides an optimization model in the form of the fixed-charge problem (FCP) that takes into account not only variable costs but also fixed costs of the activities to be planned. This paper links the two approaches by expanding the FCP to a multi-level fixed-charge problem (MLFCP), which maps the hierarchical decomposition of fixed costs in accordance with multi-level contribution margin accounting. In this way, previously hidden optimization potentials can be made visible within the framework of multi-level contribution margin accounting. Applying the linkage to a case study illustrates that the original assessment of profitability gained on the sole basis of a multi-level contribution margin calculation might turn out to be inappropriate or even inverted as soon as mathematical optimization is utilized: products, divisions, and other reference objects for fixed cost allocation, which at first glance seem to be profitable (or unprofitable) might be revealed as actually unprofitable (or profitable), when the multi-level contribution margin calculation is linked to the MLFCP. Furthermore, the proposed concept facilitates assessment of the costs of an increasing variant diversity, which also demonstrates that common rules on how to interpret a multi-level contribution margin calculation may have to be revised in some cases from the viewpoint of optimization. Finally, the impact of changes in the fixed cost structure and other parameters is tested via sensitivity analyses and stochastic optimization.

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“…Possible reference may also be made to the “endogenous fixed charge problem” in Ross (2016 , p. 1 and pp. 9–11) and Ross et al. (2018 , pp.…”

Section: Model Formulation and Linking Framework For Optimizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Model Formulation and Linking Framework For Optimizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making better decisions by applying mathematical optimization to cost accounting: An advanced approach to multi-level contribution margin accounting

Gutiérrez

2021

Heliyon

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“…Road consructions also cause substantial environmental damage to forests (Kan 2013). Stream crossings, usually culverts in British Columbia, can negatively affect fish and aquatic ecosystems (BC Ministry of Environment 2007) Several studies have addressed forest road construction and maintenance (Coulter et al 2006;Gjahar et al 2013) with the idea of reducing costs and leaving more profit for the forest owners (Ross et al 2018).…”

Section: Introduction 11 Forest Road Qualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpaved forest road quality assessment using airborne LiDAR data

Waga¹

2021

Diss. For.

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This study creates new methods for assessing unpaved forest road quality using airborne laser scanning (ALS) data. The low and high pulse density ALS data were first processed and digital elevation models (DEMs) created at several resolutions from 0.2 m to 1 m. Different interpolation methods such as IDW, NN, Spline and Kriging were compared in the first phase, and IDW was chosen for further calculations. The work focuses on road quality properties such as surface flatness, surface wear quality, road structure, ditch quality, road drying properties and water accumulation, and also the vegetation cover on and beside the road.The roads were divided into three categories using the Metsäteho forest road quality assessment system. Active/deactivated road status was assessed on Vancouver Island, Canada. Linear discriminant analysis was used to find the best predictors of the road quality classes, the result being validated using confusion matrices, by k-fold cross-validation, and/or by calculating kappa values. A combination of surface indices, the topographic wetness index and soil information provided high precision (81.6-89.8%) information about unpaved forest road quality. Simultaneously, the indices individually showed promising results when applied to high pulse density data. The classification based on vegetation growth was up to 73% correct, while the presence of a ditch system and its status as mapped using the high resolution LiDAR data was up to 92% correct.The findings indicate that the use of LiDAR data can help forest managers gain more information about the quality and status of forest roads in remote areas without spending extra resources (time, transportation costs, personnel) on checking the road network manually. Although the use of ALS data for road quality assessment cannot yet replace field visits, it opens up possibilities for further research and offer the option of combining these novel approaches with other road assessments.

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“…These are all costly activities required in the management of plantation forests. An integration of road network and transportation planning into harvest scheduling may offer an opportunity to minimize the overall costs of timber harvesting and log transportation (Ross et al 2018, Chung et al 2005. However, the planning problems become larger and more complex, and thus more difficult to solve.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite the NP-hard nature of the problem, there were several attempts to formulate and solve tactical forest problems as FCTP. Ross et al (2018) formulated a MILP Fixed Charge Transportation Model (FCTM) for a study in Washington State, United States. They used the Model II formulation (Johnson and Scheurman 1977) along with endogenous road costs, and were able to produce results that reduced the overall road cost by 15.4% and active road distance by 14.5%…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partitioning and solving large-scale tactical harvest scheduling problems for industrial plantation forests

2020

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Spatially explicit, tactical forest planning is a necessary but challenging task in the management of plantation forests. It involves harvest scheduling and planning for road access and log transportation over time and space. This combinatorial problem can be formulated into the fixed-charge transportation problem (FCTP), in which the sum of fixed and variable costs is minimized while meeting harvest volume requirements and allowing necessary road maintenance and log hauling activities. The problem can be solved using general optimization methods such as mixed-integer linear programming (MILP), but the computational efficiency of the MILP-based approach quickly drops as the size and complexity of the problem increases. We developed a new optimization procedure that partitions the large planning problem into smaller subproblems. We applied a hybrid optimization approach using both MILP and heuristic rules to efficiently solve the large FCTP that otherwise may not be solvable using traditional methods. We applied our approach to an industrial plantation forest in Brazil. Our applications demonstrate the performance of the new optimization procedure and the benefit of solving large forest planning problems that integrate harvest scheduling with road access and transportation.

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Forest Harvest Scheduling with Endogenous Road Costs

Cited by 9 publications

References 9 publications

Making better decisions by applying mathematical optimization to cost accounting: An advanced approach to multi-level contribution margin accounting

Making better decisions by applying mathematical optimization to cost accounting: An advanced approach to multi-level contribution margin accounting

Unpaved forest road quality assessment using airborne LiDAR data

Partitioning and solving large-scale tactical harvest scheduling problems for industrial plantation forests

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