Marknadsundersökning av färdigkapade produkter

Abstract: An increased demand for processed goods on the property market has contributed toinvestments within the Swedish sawmill industry. The purpose with this study is to make amarket investigation of pre cut lengths within a defined geographic area. The constituent forthis investigation is HAL (AB Hilmer Andersson) who invests in a new plane facility and twofinger jointing machines in affiliation to their sawmill in Lässerud, the vest part of Värmland.To investigate the demand of pre cut lengths and identifies the value creating factors and costfactors which the customer within the segments industry and property market perceive, havedifferent customer value theories been used. Theories of customer value and the theory aboutoffering has been the source of creating the qualitative interview with a selection of currentand new potential customers for HAL.The result of the study first gives an introduction of HAL’s new offering and a description ofHAL’s current customers, which gives the reader an understanding of why searching for newcustomers is made in the defined area. The result of the visit interviews (which were madewith a selection of current customers) concretises the value creating factors and cost factorswhich they perceive in current business relation with HAL. An analyse of the result weremade with a customer-value-model. The just-in-time and product attribute together with agood personal relation was the main value creating factors, while the price of the product wasthe conclusive cost factor.A register of interesting Swedish and Norwegian customers were constituted. HAL made aselection of new potential customers from the register that I made visit interviews with. HALalso made a selection of new customers which was called to prove the reliability of the result.The customer which HAL didn’t select can be used as a future customer database. A matchwas made between the new potential customers and the value HAL has approved that they candeliver their customers. It was shown in the analyse that all the new potential customers ingeneral matched the value HAL can deliver. Though one of the new potential customersdemanded products that HAL cannot produce in their new facility, however there was other inthe range of HAL’s products that could be of interest instead.Demanded assortment for the industry customers was pre cut (in millimetre precision) lengthswhich were direct adapted for their own production. The mostly demanded pre cut lengths ofinterest were approximately 2,5 m for weathering and structural timber. Plank which are usedfor the course of logs or roof construction are demanded pre cut in longer lengths (more than5,4 m). However lengths up to 12 m are today (2010) low. This is mostly apparent in theproperty market where the most of their own customers are DIY (Do-It-Yourself) and procustomers and they often demand shorter lengths than 6-7 m.The roof truss manufacturer (which is a part of the industry segment, due to HAL’s definition)has neither stock capacity for lengths over 6 m nor handling capabilities in their own plants.They demanded timber package that were cut in module lengths which they cut with theangels needed for their own roof truss constructions.The conclusion is therefore that the demand seems to be highest both for pre cut lengths andlengths up to 12 m in the industry segment.Finally in the study there is a review of the usefulness of qualitative research methods formarket investigations within the sawmill industry. If HAL takes part of understanding bothvalue creating and cost creating factors the investment will be a successful choice at acustomer perspective, because there is a demand big enough to reach HAL’s increase inproduction capacity in the geographic studied area.