Is for...

Multi-Year Operational Planning: OperMAX helps managers develop optimum multi-year, multi-season forest operating plans to produce the lowest costs or highest profits over the entire range of forest activities, while recognizing all pertinent operating and market constraints: road access, infrastructure requirements, productive capacity, operability and mill contracts. If the products that can be produced in individual harvest blocks can vary (allowing the production of either sawlogs or studwood, for example), OperMAX can also specify which products should be produced in which blocks. By specifying mill consumptions, wood prices, allowable (or required) wood purchases, and minimum and maximum mill-yard inventories, a plan can be produced that maximizes the profitability of the operation. Forest to mill or sort-yard, sort-yard to mill and mill to mill wood-flows can be incorporated into the planning process so that the efficiency of the entire supply chain can be optimized.

Optimal Annual Planning: Once an optimal Multi-Year operating plan has been created, OperMAX is able to produce a detailed, optimal annual plan from the first year of the multi-year plan, specifying harvesting and product deliveries on a sub-season or monthly basis.

Re-planning: As an operating year unfolds and new information about markets or operations is learned, managers can use OperMAX to re-plan the remainder of the operating year or an entire multi-year plan, taking into account the actual results to date.

Sensitivity Analyses: OperMAX produces a sensitivity report that clearly describes the cost of all user-specified constraints. In this way, it is easy to see which resource or policy constraints are adversely affecting the profitability of the operation. Furthermore, by varying assumptions and inputs, it is possible to identify the robustness of a plan, and therefore the ability for an operation to remain efficient despite adverse situations.

Strategic and Tactical Decisions: Besides producing optimum operating plans, OperMAX helps in the analysis of strategic and tactical decisions that impact the entire company. Need to analyze the effect of a mill re-engineering, shut-down or expansion? New market possibilities or product specifications? Changes to blocking or operability regulations? All of these should be analyzed based upon their effect on the entire supply chain, including the true impact upon forest operations, not just using averages or “guesstimates”.