Automation engineers are leading the push to fully digitalise and automate the forestry and forest‑products value chain, launching AutoForst – a €6 million project backed by three universities and 20 partners. Over the next four years, Wood Central understands the initiative, led by the Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) in Austria, will use automation to boost supply‑chain safety, ease the labour squeeze, and modernise logistics in the world’s leading producer of cross‑laminated timber.
As it stands, forestry employs 440,000 Austrians and generates €43 billion in value, yet it struggles to attract new skilled workers. “Forestry is characterised by physically demanding and sometimes dangerous work,” according to Mario Hirz from TU Graz’s Institute of Automotive Engineering. “Forestry companies cannot find enough people who are capable of carrying out the dangerous and difficult tasks.”
Hirz is leading AutoForst alongside Christoph Stocker, a senior researcher and project leader at TU Graz’s Institute of Automotive Engineering, with half the funding coming from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG). Their goal is to develop digital and automated systems that make forestry safer, more efficient, and appealing for new workers. “We want to develop systems that make work along the forestry value chain more efficient, easier, and safer,” Hirz said. “This will also make forestry work more attractive to new groups of people.”
A major focus is the development of automated assistance systems designed to reduce risk during hazardous tasks such as handling and loading logs. The new initiative builds on earlier TU Graz research that produced a prototype loading crane capable of autonomously lifting logs onto trucks, allowing workers to supervise operations from outside the danger zone. AutoForst will now extend this work by integrating advanced sensors and camera systems that can automatically detect critical situations – from people entering hazardous areas to misaligned truck supports.
These same sensor technologies will support broader automation of forest transport systems, laying the groundwork for safer and more efficient operations. Digitalisation is central to the project, with the consortium developing tools that collect and process data directly in the forest to enable real‑time information flows across the supply chain. “The systems will record key parameters such as wood type, quality, and diameter directly when the tree trunks are harvested and forward the data to the owners in real time,” Hirz explains.
This data‑driven approach is expected to streamline downstream operations at sawmills, paper mills, and other processors by allowing wood to be tracked along the entire logistics chain. Better data means better planning, less waste, and more efficient transport.
At the same time, digital tools are also being deployed to support sustainable forest management. One example is the use of drones equipped with cameras that automatically identify diseased trees: “In the event of a bark beetle infestation, the diseased trees must be removed from the forest within a few days to prevent the insects from spreading further,” Hirz added. “Drones can detect outbreaks far faster than traditional ground surveys, saving time and reducing losses.”
And as labour shortages intensify and climate pressures mount, TU Graz and its partners see automation and digitalisation as essential to the sector’s long‑term resilience. To that end, Hirz says the project’s mission is simple: “We want to make forestry work safer, easier, and more efficient – and in doing so, ensure the long‑term future of the entire value chain.”
