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Quality aspects of digital forest service management: a case study

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Abstract

Forest industry plays a critical role for many remote rural regions in Nordic countries. Despite the increasing number of various digital transformation initiatives, many forestry organizations still use very traditional non-digitalized work practices in harvesting, logging, and support operations. Unfortunately, digital transformation is often performed as an ad hoc activity without a holistic approach to ensure ICT quality control. In this paper, we aim to answer the research problem of how digital transformation affects the quality of a forest machine operator’s operational processes and service systems. A case study research method with a single case structure was used in this study. The main contribution of the paper is to show that digital transformation shall benefit not only the forest machine operator organization but also their surrounding ecosystem by increasing transparency of operations, reducing travel costs, increasing productivity, and creating a more proactive operating model. Both sociological and technical aspects of digital transformation are discussed in the context of forest service management. Additionally, we show that in order to succeed in digital transformation, forestry organizations must pay attention to various quality aspects holistically: hardware quality, software quality, service quality, data quality, and process/project quality.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank for the financial support received during the Development of AIKA Ecosystem in Kainuu project (Regional Council of Kainuu, A78688) and DIH-World project (co-funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the EU under grant agreement No 952176).

Funding

This work was supported by the Development of AIKA Ecosystem in Kainuu project (Regional Council of Kainuu, A78688) and DIH-World (co-funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the EU under grant agreement No 952176).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CEMIS Centre, Kajaani University of Applied Sciences, Ketunpolku 1, 87101, Kajaani, Finland

    Marko Jäntti

  2. Funlus Oy, Sepontie 15, 73300, Nilsiä, Finland

    Markus Aho

  3. UEF Business School, University of Eastern Finland, Yliopistokatu 2, 80100, Joensuu, Finland

    Markus Aho

  4. School of Computing, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland

    Marko Jäntti

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  1. Marko Jäntti
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  2. Markus Aho
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Marko Jäntti and Markus Aho contributed equally to this work.

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Correspondence to Marko Jäntti.

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Marko Jäntti and Markus Aho contributed equally to this work.

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Jäntti, M., Aho, M. Quality aspects of digital forest service management: a case study. Software Qual J 32, 75–94 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-023-09635-3

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