Application of Operations Research in the Efficient Cross-cutting of Logs

Considerable amount of wood losses occur in the conversion of trees into logs and the logs into wood products in further stages of manufacture. In the past, attention was focussed on methods and techniques to minimize these wood losses. In recent years, the focus has shifted from "minimizing wood losses" to "minimizing economic losses" or "maximizing the potential value that can be generated from a tree length or long-log". This paper describes the use of the Dynamic Programming method of Operations Research for achieving economic efficiency in Cross-cutting of logs. The method is illustrated through examples.