Log Plan

Planning for lumber mill supply was previously being managed through a highly complex spreadsheet that only one internal report writer fully understood and maintained, and adding a new mill could take weeks of manual effort. Spreadsheet copies were frequently duplicated, edited independently, and sent around the organization, which introduced versioning challenges and the potential for human error.

As the customer moved to an approximately 18-month forecasting cycle, their existing tools could realistically handle only 6 to 12 months, with no easy way to support longer-term planning in spreadsheets. Planning itself was a two-sided problem, balancing mill demand for specific volumes, species, and log profiles against available timber spread across many tracts of land, and previous systems addressed later stages like sales, shipping, and contracts rather than this critical early planning phase.

The customer wanted to replace the fragile spreadsheet with a centralized system, reduce dependence on a single internal expert, and enable long-range, 18-month forecasting. They asked for a modern web application, highly configurable and adaptable, designed specifically for log planning and forecasting, and capable of identifying unsecured volume, the logs still needed to keep mills running at capacity, all while making it easier to add new mills, adjust assumptions, and reconfigure planning models.

Log Plan is a centralized log planning and forecasting application. It brings planning together across forestry tracts, mills, and log types and species; supports long-term forecasting of about 18 months and mill capacity planning; and includes a dedicated mill view showing expected log inputs and capacity alignment, along with manual adjustment tools to refine assumptions and keep plans accurate.

The system imports log delivery data through Trimble LIMS CSV imports, representing how much volume is arriving at each mill, with mill consumption adjustable manually as needed. It was built as a .NET application on Microsoft SQL Server, secured with Single Sign-On through Azure Active Directory in a hybrid environment that pairs cloud-based authentication with integration into their existing enterprise systems.

Log Plan shows how a fragile, expert-dependent spreadsheet can be transformed into a centralized, configurable web application that plans across tracts, mills, and species. By enabling 18-month forecasting, integrating log delivery data from Trimble LIMS, and securing access with Azure AD single sign-on, Sembit modernized the earliest stage of the customer's pipeline and laid a durable foundation for the future.