Case Name :      MacTara Limited and the Wood Products Industry in Nova Scotia

Authors :           Julia Sagebien, Rick Shaver

Source :             Ivey Publishing

Case ID :            907M70

Discipline :        Operations Management

Case Length :    12 pages

Solution Sample availability : YES

Plagiarism : NO (100% Original work)

The case centers around the strategic planning retreat of MacTara Limited (MacTara), the largest wood products company in Nova Scotia. While there are some very good opportunities for the company in some sectors, like wood pellets for fuel (high demand for inexpensively priced renewable energy sources), the Canadian lumber industry as a whole is not attractive at this time (distortionary effects of the Canadian-U.S. softwood lumber dispute, low price of lumber, sales denominated in the free-falling U.S. dollar, inflexible cost structure, etc). The fact that MacTara is a somewhat vertically integrated company – from construction lumber, to chips for paper mills, to fuel pellets made out of wood waste – makes planning very difficult because the health of each sector impacts on the prospects for the others. Company executives need to find a way to make all the various pieces of the business fit together into a profitable whole while they still have money and time. The Canadian lumber industry is in crisis and the eastern Canadian industry is ripe for consolidation.