Logistics of roundwood and biomass comprise a high number of operations, machinery, storage sites and transportable roundwood and biomass assortments. Moreover, complex and highly varying operational environment through the year poses logistics challenges incurring additional costs. An extensive review of studies was conducted in Sweden and Finland concerning roundwood and biomass logistics, starting from roadside landings and ending with delivery to a mill or a conversion facility. The main aim of the review was to describe trends in roundwood and biomass logistics since the start of the century. Papers were classified to categories of truck transports and roads, terminals, multimodal transports, storage and supply chain logistics. Slightly over 50% of reviewed articles were constrained to biomass only, 31% to roundwood only and 14% to both. Rapid technology development, amendments concerning road transports, increasing environmental concerns and forestry sector’s push to decrease the logistics costs can be seen as the biggest drivers for the reviewed studies and their study objectives. These aspects will also drive and increase the demand for research and development in roundwood and biomass logistics in the future.

This research analyses the productivity of energy wood chipping operations at several sites in Austria and Finland. The aim of the work is to examine the differences in productivity and the effects of the operational environment for the chipping of bioenergy at the roadside. Furthermore, the study quantifies the effects of different variables such as forest energy assortments, tree species, sieve size and machines on the overall productivity of chipping. The results revealed that there are significant differences in the chipping productivity in Austria and Finland which are largely based on the use of different sieve sizes. Furthermore, the different operational environments in both countries, as well as the characteristics of the raw material also seem to have an effect on productivity. In order to improve the chipping productivity, particularly in Central European conditions, all relevant stakeholders need to work jointly to find solutions that will allow a greater variation of chip size. Furthermore, in the future more consideration has to be given to the close interlinkage between the chipper, crane and grapple. As a result, investments costs can be optimized and operational costs and stress on the machines reduced.