Abstract
Industrial thinking has to replace craftsmanship thinking (essay) By the beginning of the 1980s, the Swiss forestry sector lost its financial viability. Although operational forestry activities have been subsidized, the overall situation even worsened con sid erably since then. This poses the question whether there are ways out of this situation and if there are, which ones. The present contribution takes up the hypothesis that the Swiss forestry sector is still mainly based on craftsmanship thinking while successful forestry sectors of other countries have been following industrial thinking. The analysis results in the following theses: The difficulties of economic efficiency emerged in the 1960s, and sector-wide initiatives were launched to solve the problem, among which the 1975 master plan for a Swiss forest sector policy was of special importance. Industrial thinking is based on the following principles: 1) a systematic capitalization of economies of scale effects, 2) an integration of all production and distribution processes across owners and firms, 3) full mechanization of wood harvesting, and 4) rationalization of the biological production based on modern tree breeding methods. The intention of the present article is to contribute to a discussion which discards outworn patterns of thought, and which is honestly looking for viable, competitive solutions.
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