Management of outsourced forest harvesting operations for better customer-contractor alignment

Performance of harvesting operations is vital for wood supply chains to enable delivery of the right product to the right market at the right price. Consequently, the performance of harvesting contractors has been the topic of many studies over the years, but few of these have investigated the critical issue of whether contractor performance is in alignment with downstream needs. Furthermore, no previous study has suggested a clear route that forest companies can take to promote alignment of their employed contractors. This paper presents a framework specifically designed to help managers measure and foster contractor alignment within their wood supply chain.