Forestry 4.0: a framework for the forest supply chain toward Industry 4.0

Abstract: Forest industry plays an important role in global economy and has significant influences in our lives and the environment that we live in. With the rapid advancement of digital technologies and industrial transformations towards Industry 4.0, similar trend has been found in the forest industry and especially on its forest procurement side. Forestry 4.0 has been proposed as research initiatives in recent years. However, publications have largely focused on the digital technologies. This article is aimed at presenting a framework to provide a holistic view of Forestry 4.0 from a forest supply chain perspective. The framework consists of four major components including the digital technologies pertinent to each of the supply chain business activities; the network infrastructure; the next generation system intelligence; and the collaborative forest supply chain digital ecosystem. These components are essential for the forest industry transformation to become truly interconnected among its supply chain actors. Some economic, environmental, and social expected benefits of Forestry 4.0 are discussed as well as potential impacts and challenges.