Biomass and carbon dynamics in forest management at a strategic scale

This study explored these two questions: (1) How much carbon can be stored in the forest? and (2) Which forest management regimes best achieve the dual objectives of high sustained timber yield and high carbon sequestration? A model that can be used to predict carbon sequestration potential within a forest region assuming a given management strategy was developed. First, a carbon sequestration unit that accounts for both the amount of carbon stocked and the time during which it is stocked was introduced. This unit was used to integrate the carbon dimension in a Model-III formulation for forest management adapted from the description of models used by the Chief Forester who is responsible of determining the annual allowable cut in the different forest management units in Québec. The CBM-CFS3 model was used to simulate carbon dynamics of above- and belowground biomass and dead organic matter, including soils. Different management scenarios were developed using the data of an actual forest management unit in Quebec. Managing this forest for carbon maximization instead of letting grow naturally with no harvest or other treatment, would increase the carbon stocks by 1.89%, and only 25% of the carbon stock is estimated to occur in the aboveground live pool. Six scenarios aimed at achieving the dual objectives of high sustained timber yield and high carbon storage were also computed and compared

E-business in the Quebec forest products industry : perceptions, current uses and intentions to adopt

This paper proposes an analysis of e-business, its perceptions, current uses, and the intentions of companies to adopt these practices in the Quebec forest products industry. We use the results of an exploratory survey of this industry carried out during spring 2002. In accordance with other surveys, it is shown that despite its location in a country where information technology (IT) adoption level is generally high, the Quebec forest products industry still lags behind other sectors. The e-business uses of the surveyed companies in the Quebec forest products industry value chain are explored by category; year of establishment, number of employees and annual revenue. Actors surveyed include sawmills, other value added building material manufacturers, furniture factories, and pulp and paper mills. Perceptions, currents uses, and intentions of adoption are described with a comparison to the same industry in North America. In particular, this paper demonstrates that this industry somewhat lacks a strategic vision concerning the exploitation of IT tools. Finally, this paper proposes a critical review of the limitations of our study and develops future research directions

Multi-behavior agent model for supply chain management

Recent economic and international threats to occidental industries have encouraged companies to rethink their planning systems. Due to consolidation, the development of integrated supply chains and the use of inter-organizational information systems have increased business interdependencies and the need for collaboration. Thus, agility and the ability to deal quickly with disturbances in supply chains are critical to maintain overall performance. In order to develop tools to increase the agility of the supply chain and to promote the collaborative management of such disturbances, agent-based technology takes advantage of the ability of agents to make autonomous decisions in a distributed network. This paper proposes a multi-behavior agent model using different decision making approaches in a context where planning decisions are supported by a distributed advanced planning system (d-APS). The implementation of this solution is realized through the FOR@C experimental agent-based platform, dedicated to the supply chain planning for the forest products industry

Entre deux régimes : Louis-Léonard Aumasson de Courville et ses Mémoires

Publiés en 1838 mais datant pour l’essentiel de la fin du régime français au Canada, Les Mémoires du S... de C..., contenant l’histoire du Canada durant la guerre, et sous le gouvernement anglais sont attribués depuis 1940 à Louis-Léonard Aumasson de Courville (c. 1722-1781), un notaire et écrivain d’origine champenoise ayant vécu en Acadie française et dans la vallée du Saint-Laurent.. Le manuscrit (conservé aux archives du musée McCord de Montréal) à la base de cette publication daterait donc de la fin des années 1750. Peu après la prise de la colonie par les Britanniques, Courville s’est mis à réviser ce texte à l’intention de la nouvelle administration, rédigeant un deuxième manuscrit correspondant, à se fier à l’exemplaire conservé (également aux archives McCord), à une partie seulement du premier. Les deux versions se distinguent de nombre d’autres témoignages de cette période par leur ton incisif et leur touche anticléricale. Le premier chapitre du mémoire s’attache à suivre l’histoire des textes courvilliens : les circonstances de leur rédaction et leur utilisation dans l’historiographie, mais aussi leur étude par Aegidius Fauteux, celui qui percera le mystère entourant la personne qui s’est cachée pendant presque deux siècles derrière le pseudonyme du « S... de C... ». Le deuxième chapitre s’interroge sur les motifs de l’auteur de ces mémoires, s’attachant pour ce faire à suivre son parcours personnel difficile. Enfin, le troisième chapitre est consacré à l’analyse du propos de Courville dans les deux versions de ses Mémoires, véritable réquisitoire contre la corruption du régime français finissant.Published in 1838 but dating essentially from the end of the French Regime in Canada, Les Mémoires du S... de C..., contenant l’histoire du Canada durant la guerre, et sous le gouvernement anglais have been attributed since 1940 to Louis-Léonard Aumasson de Courville (c. 1722-1781), a notary and clerk from the Champagne region of France who lived in Acadia and in the St. Lawrence Valley. Now held by the McCord Museum Archives, the manuscript that was published in 1838 thus dates from the later 1750s. Shortly after the British conquest of the colony, Courville began revising this text for submission to the new administration, writing a second manuscript, which, if the still extant version (also in the McCord Archives) is any indication, corresponded to only part of the first text. Both versions differ from other descriptions of the colony during these years by their incisive and anticlerical tone. The first chapter of the thesis traces the history of Courville’s texts: the circumstances leading to their writing; their use by historians; their analysis by Aegidius Fauteux with a view to identifying the mysterious S… de C…. The second chapter attempts to understand Courville’s motives by examining his difficult colonial career. The third and last chapter analyzes Courville’s portrait of colonial life in his texts, which amount to an indictment of the corruption of the last years of the French regime

Timber selling policies using bundle-based auction : the case of public forests in Québec

In the province of Québec, the government provides 25% of the volume of timber that is annually cut in crown forests through sealed-bid one-winner auctions. It was noted that many offers are made for some areas but few or none are made for many other areas. As such, a significant number of the timber volumes remains unsold. However, the combination of areas to form bundles can provide economy of scale that is not seen otherwise. We highlight some issues regarding the current allocation system and we analyse the effectiveness of different bundling systems in maximizing government revenues and enhancing bidders' competitiveness. We use actual forest data to evaluate different rules and strategies for the creation and allocation of partial and full bundles. Our results suggest that the use of the option of bundling forests areas makes the auction process more beneficial to the majority of stakeholders: Government revenues are increased; the bidding companies are more likely to obtain the desired volumes and pay less for harvesting and equipment relocation; and greenhouse gas emissions are reduced

An approach to model and manage cost-risk trade-off in Networked Manufacturing

Le présent article introduit une évaluation du risque dans la planification des systèmes manufacturiers, impliquant différents acteurs travaillant séquentiellement pour réaliser un produit. Nous considérons ici un environnement dynamique virtuel, où différentes firmes soumissionnent pour des taches précises. L’approche traditionnelle est d’assigner des firmes à des taches pour minimiser les coûts d’utilisation de la chaîne. Cette approche néglige ainsi la notion de fiabilité et de risque. L’objectif de cet article est de proposer une façon d’incorporer la notion de risque au processus de planification de la chaîne. Nous avons identifié le risque comme une combinaison de trois principaux intrants, et nous l’évaluons grâce à une approche dérivée de la logique floue. Nous décrivons comment fonctionne notre programme, et comment le risque évalué est utilisé pour établir quelles firmes choisir afin d’optimiser le compromis coût-risque.This paper introduces elements of risk into supply-chain manufacturing systems that involve various actors acting sequentially to achieve an end-result. We consider a virtual dynamic environment, where different firms bid on sequential tasks. The traditional approach has been to assign tasks to firms, in order to realize production as cost-effective chains of activities. This approach neglects elements of risk, which we show how to incorporate. We have identified risk as a combination of three inputs, using a fuzzy logic approach. We show how a fuzzy controller can measure the risk involved in a supply-chain, which is constructed on an order-contract basis. We use this measure of risk to build a decision support environment that helps isolate alternative supply-chains that are potentially interesting from a cost perspective and compares them from a risk minimization stand point.

An agent-based strategy for deploying analysis models into specification and design for distributed APS systems

Despite the extensive use of the agent technology in the Supply Chain Management field, its integration with Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) tools still represents a promising field with several open research questions. Specifically, the literature falls short in providing an integrated framework to analyze, specify, design and implement simulation experiments covering the whole simulation cycle. Thus, this paper proposes an agent-based strategy to convert the 'analysis' models into 'specification' and 'design' models combining two existing methodologies proposed in the literature. The first one is a recent and unique approach dedicated to the 'analysis' of agent-based APS systems. The second one is a well-established methodological framework to 'specify' and 'design' agent-based supply chain systems. The proposed conversion strategy is original and is the first one allowing simulation analysts to integrate the whole simulation development process in the domain of distributed APS

A methodological framework for the analysis of agent-based supply chain planning simulations

Agent-based simulation is considered a promising approach for supply chain (SC) planning, configuration and design. Although there have been many important advances on how to specify, design, and implement agent-based simulation, the concerned literature does not properly addresses the analysis phase. In this early phase, SC stakeholders decide what kind of simulation experiments should be performed and their requirements, which considerably influence the whole development process and the resulting simulation environment. This work proposes an agent-based simulation framework for modeling SC systems in the analysis phase. In addition, it proposes a formal method for converting the analysis model into specification and design models. The proposed framework is being validated by means of an agent-based simulation platform developed in the context of the lumber industry.

A strategic forest management model for optimizing timber yield and carbon sequestration

Strategic forest management planning models designed to maintain existing carbon stocks and maximize capacity for future sequestration can help identify underused opportunities to increase carbon stocks without diminishing other forest products. This study proposed a carbon stock unit that allows summing up the stocks in the different forest pools even if the decomposition far exceeds the planning horizon. This unit is used to integrate the methods and algorithms from the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector (CBM-CFS3) model into a wood supply model. The resulting model could be used to predict changes in carbon stocks, transfers between carbon pools, and greenhouse gas emissions that would result from every forest management activity. We tailored this model to meet different strategies: maximizing carbon storage in the forest, maximizing high-sustained timber yield, and achieving the dual objectives of yield and carbon storage. A range of management scenarios were simulated using the data of a 485,000 hectares mixed-wood forest in Quebec, Canada. Our results demonstrate that, with the reduction in the harvest rates, the increase in the ecosystem carbon storage is insufficient to offset the carbon losses associated with the increase in the harvest rates. Study Implications: In this article, we adopt the perspective of forest managers who contend that removing lumber from the forest can be achieved in a responsible way or in a way that does not affect the carbon stocks in the forest in the long term. We propose a model that integrates methods and algorithms from the CBM-CFS3 model to simulate carbon dynamics of aboveground and belowground biomass and dead organic matter, including soils. The model can be used to predict carbon storage potential within a forest region assuming a given management strategy. We used data of a large forest area to develop a number of sophisticated scenarios of strategic forest planning. Our results are consistent with the forest managers’ contentions. When carbon was maximized regardless of volume, the increase in the ecosystem carbon storage was insufficient to offset the carbon losses associated with the reduction in the harvest rates

Supply chain coordination using an adaptive distributed search strategy

A tree search strategy is said to be adaptive when it dynamically identifies which areas of the tree are likely to contain good solutions, using information that is gathered during the search process. This study shows how an adaptive approach can be used to enhance the efficiency of the coordination process of an industrial supply chain. The result is a new adaptive method (called the adaptive discrepancy search), intended for search in nonbinary trees, and that is exploitable in a distributed optimization context. For the industrial case studied (a supply chain in the forest products industry), this allowed reducing nearly half the time needed to obtain the best solution in comparison with a standard nonadaptive method. The method has also been evaluated for use with synthesized problems in order to validate the results that are obtained and to illustrate different properties of the algorith