Quality assurance practices in the Swedish sawmill industry

Sawmills are experiencing a turbulent environment in which customers’ expectations and global competition set the landscape for the sawmill industry. Increasing competition and complexity, as well as the general technological development in the business environment, have enhanced the importance of quality with regards to both products and services. Hence it is important for sawmills to be able to offer a high quality of its products and services to its customers. The purpose of this paper is to identify the currently existing quality assurance practices in the Swedish sawmill industry. This study is conducted as an interview study, in which five sawmill representatives were interviewed with regards to, for instance, their quality assurance process and quality measurements. The study concludes that the individual sawmills work to either an ISO-9000 or strength grading certificate and hence they adhere to certified procedures and routines. This research, however, does not register actions taken in every-day business, and hence additional studies would need to be conducted with an in-depth case study approach in order to identify the actual behavior at each sawmill. The studies identify factors limiting sawmills in their work to meet customers’ requirements; however, customers asking for additional requirements are often denied delivery of products. This study aims at laying a foundation regarding sawmills’ quality assurance practices and thus covers an unexplored area within sawmill research.