Case Study Reclaimed the Greener Way: A Proposed Supply Chain Model for the Reclaimed Lumber Industry

Thanks to the strategic priorities of the current federal administration, discussions about green management are a popular trend in the business community. Increasing efficiency, limiting energy consumption, and reducing waste internally as well as along the supply chain has been one way that managers have addressed “going green.” Some examples include front-to-back printing and stringent recycling efforts. For the lumber industry, going green is not as easy as changing how employees print or recycle plastic bottles, especially since one of the main resources in the lumber industry is wood. In this regard, the authors discuss a proposed supply chain model to reduce intra-process shipments, improve raw material acquisition and usage, and improve production yields through repurposing of the wood by-product created during the manufacture of reclaimed, wood-based products. The proposed model also suggests that entrepreneurial efforts could lead the way in innovating how wood by-products can be used to create disruptive methods that could lead to new wood based businesses.