In subtropical eastern Australia, hardwood sawmills are exploring opportunities to adapt to declining availability of traditional, large hardwood native forest logs through the manufacture of veneer and laminated veneer lumber (LVL) from comparatively abundant small, native forest logs. This paper introduces an operations research model that evaluates the financial performance of veneer and LVL investment opportunities. Application of the model to subtropical eastern Australia revealed that production and sale of green and dry veneer was not financially viable. One-stage LVL manufacture was profitable at larger scales of production; however, the superior investment alternative was the manufacture of two-stage LVL. Strong economies of scale were revealed in the production of LVL. The mix of logs procured for veneering had a large impact on financial performance due to the combined effects of mill-delivered log cost, the rate at which logs can be processed and veneer recovery from log volume. Encouragingly for forest growers and wood processors, it was optimal for 42.6% of log volume to be small logs at the 30,000 m³ y⁻¹ of log processing scale. The major policy implication arising from this study is that opportunities for processors to profitably manufacture LVL will be enhanced by government forest policy and codes of practice for private land that permit utilisation of small logs, particularly from suppressed trees that will never attain the specifications of traditional log types. The model framework and several parameter estimates adopted for analysis are likely to be useful for forestry decision-making environments outside Australia.

在澳大利亚亚热带东部，硬木锯材厂正在探索机会，以通过利用相对丰富的小型原生林原木生产单板和层压单板木材（LVL）来适应传统的大型硬木原生林原木供应的下降。本文介绍了一种运营研究模型，用于评估饰面板和LVL投资机会的财务绩效。该模型在澳大利亚东部亚热带地区的应用表明，绿色和干式单板的生产和销售在财务上并不可行。一级LVL生产在较大规模的生产中是有利可图的。但是，更好的投资选择是制造两级LVL。LVL的生产显示出强大的规模经济。由于工厂交付的原木成本，原木的处理速度和从原木量中回收单板的综合作用，为门面采购的原木种类对财务绩效产生了很大影响。对于林木种植者和木材加工者而言，这是令人鼓舞的，对于30,000 m处的小型原木，最理想的是原木量的42.6％日志处理规模的³ y ^-1。这项研究产生的主要政策含义是，政府的森林政策和允许使用小木料的私有土地业务守则（特别是那些永远无法达到传统规格的压制树木）将为加工商带来有利可图的生产价值，这将增加加工商获利的机会。日志类型。用于分析的模型框架和几个参数估计值可能对澳大利亚以外的林业决策环境有用。