In 1997, Canadian Forest Products (Canfor), headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, was faced with a growing number of pressures common to the forest industry, particularly in the Pacific Northwest of North America: increased regulatory requirements, growing pressure for ecocertification, and a drive for improved financial performance. Technological innovation was required to manage rapidly increasing amounts of information essential to Canfor's success.

While many organizations have acquired and implemented GIS systems over the years, these systems have not always resulted in a direct benefit to the end user. Often the implementation has resulted in a GIS group that provides services on demand to the rest of the organization. This most definitely provides value, but it has not pushed the use of GIS to hundreds of end users in the truly enterprisewide implementation envisaged by many of us in the GIS industry. Canfor was no different in this regard.

To create a solution, Canfor established a development group whose goal was the establishment of a fully integrated Business management tool. The group decided to provide "one window" access to the full spectrum of land and resource data. To implement their solution, code-named Genus, the group worked with Esri staff to develop a design. Esri recommended using MapObjects to embed GIS functionality within the application. The software was developed primarily in PowerBuilder around a MapObjects/Visual Basic core. The data resides in an Oracle ArcSDE database. ArcView is used for a map production module, and ArcInfo is recommended for general GIS utility work. Genus integrates GIS functionality into the daily processes of operational, planning, and management staff. A seamless modular design provides a flexible approach to satisfying current and future Business needs, with significant benefits resulting from the storage of all spatial and attribute data in a single database.

Andy Becker, planning manager at Canfor's Prince George operation, makes extensive use of Genus. "We have more than 60 operational foresters and related staff using Genus-projects that used to take several weeks to produce can now be completed in one or two days," says Becker. "Genus is providing support for scheduling operational activities; planning workloads; and providing analysis, reports, and map products that support planning, operations, and reforestation activities. With the responsibility of planning 3.6 million m3 of annual cut, managing silviculture activities on more than 6,000 blocks, and managing in excess of 25,000 km of roads, Genus is the cornerstone that provides key information for planning and storage of historical information."

Canadian Forest Products has 9,000,000 cubic meters of annual allowable cut throughout western Canada. Its eight operating divisions have now implemented Genus. All shared data is stored on an Oracle ArcSDE server at a central location. The Genus MapObjects applications run locally at each user's desktop-some data is stored locally when not required by other operating areas such as road structure information.

"We are using the many tools the system provides, such as harvest plans, silviculture prescriptions, and road maintenance tracking, to do things that perhaps were not initially envisioned," says Warren Jukes, management forester at Canfor's Peace Region. "Forestry systems are now an integral supporting tool of our day-to-day Business. We are seeing the efficiencies of an integrated system. It provides the forester with a means to be more readily accountable for hands-on activity and tracking."

The primary goal of the initial project was to make technology useful so that operational and planning staff members could benefit from its support to them for their daily activities. The resulting Genus software, as evidenced by its quick adoption by more than 600 end users, is usable as well as useful and has substantially increased the role played by GIS in the daily activities of resource planners and technicians. To that end, the new subsidiary, Genus RMT, has been established.

For more information, contact Michele Wallcraft, Genus RMT (tel.: 604-661-5338, Web: www.genusrmt.com).