Hardwood plywood product and service attributes important to North American hardwood plywood distributors

North American hardwood plywood distributors were surveyed to determine important product and service attributes, and to assess how well manufacturers rated with respect to these attributes. Data also were collected on current and future use of technology and usefulness of educational programs and promotional tools. Absence of panel delamination was the most important attribute desired by distributors, followed by shipment arrives in good condition, accessibility of the manufacturer, splice lines tightly matched, plywood face “on-grade,” and on-time delivery. The lowest manufacturers ratings were for: manufacturer provides product training; ability to fill rush orders; manufacturer follow up to see that the product meets or exceeds expectations; manufacturer’s ability to provide sample, literature, or other support; manufacturers awareness of distributors’ needs; on-time delivery; and promptness of handling custom-complaints. Differences existed in importance scores and manufacturer performance ratings across distributors with different ratios of hardwood plywood sales to total sales, distributors with different levels of total sales volumes, and distributors selling to different price point categories. Just-in-time shipments were currently being employed by 39 percent of all respondents. Other technologies commonly utilized by respondents were electronic data interface, used by 21 percent of respondents, followed by bar coding (17.1 %), vendor-managed inventory (13.8%), and the World Wide Web (9.5%). Use of the World Wide Web was predicted to grow the most by 1999, with use increasing by 276 percent, followed by bar coding (226%), electronic data interface (120%), vendor-managed inventory (100%), and just-in-time shipments (22%).

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