Forest Products Laboratory

Title: LSY : documentation for a spreadsheet tool to evaluate log-sort yard economics

Author: Bilek, Edward M.

Date: 2009

Source: General Technical Report FPL-GTR-184

Description: 

A spreadsheet-based model, LSY (Log-sort Yard Cash Flow Analysis), has been constructed to aid in the pre-feasibility and financial feasibility analysis of log-sort yards. It is meant to be referred to concurrently with this documentation and is available for downloading at no cost from the Forest Products Laboratory’s website at: http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fpl_gtr184/. The model is flexible, allowing up to 20 species and grades that each may be sorted into up to 19 products, giving a total of 380 different output possibilities. The mix of those species and grades can be allowed to change over time. Sort-yard operating hours and productivity and number and type of employees can be changed over time. Cash flows reflect automatic replacement of capital equipment when it is projected to wear out. Data on various pieces of capital equipment and equipment configurations can be stored so that cost comparisons can easily be made between different sorting systems.

Keywords: Log-sort yards, logs, storage, small-diameter timber, lumber trade, computer programs, electronic spreadsheets, break-even analysis, lumber-yards, economic aspects, financial feasibility, small-diameter, economics, cost analysis, decision support

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Citation

Bilek, Edward M.  2009.  LSY : documentation for a spreadsheet tool to evaluate log-sort yard economics.   General Technical Report FPL-GTR-184.