Project Profile

Forest Guideline Monitoring System Design

Client:
State of Minnesota, Department of Natural Resources

Location:
Statewide, Minnesota

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) contracted with Timmons Group to design an application to support forest guideline implementation monitoring for use by field staff. The business oriented goals of the completed project are to reduce data collection costs, improve data accuracy, reduce training time, increase the efficiency of data gathering, build a scalable and flexible architecture to ensure the application’s longevity. The forest guideline monitoring project required skills and abilities in natural resource business analysis, technology project management, process and data modeling, database design as well as knowledge and experience with best practices in land management GIS.

The design phase of this project entailed the development of a comprehensive field survey questionnaire-guided work flow diagrams, engineering a functional proof-of-concept prototype application built upon ESRI ArcGIS Desktop technology, creation of ergonomic application interface designs, constructing and testing the supporting database design and entity relationship model and compiling system requirement specifications.

Technology Utilized

• .NET framework
• ArcGIS Desktop
  
• ArcObjects
  
• Visual Basic
  
• Panasonic Toughbooks with GPS receivers

Project Profile

Forestry Management Requirements Definition and Application Prototype

Client:
State of Wisconsin, Department of Natural Resources

Location:
Statewide, Wisconsin

Timmons Group was tasked to perform the initial due-diligence and requirements definition for the Wisconsin Forest Inventory & Reporting System (WisFIRS) Phase II.  Additionally, Timmons Group developed a prototype GIS application that integrated with WisFIRS Phase I. WisFIRS is a web-based set of tools for collecting, mapping, planning and managing forest information, or reconnaissance, at a stand level. These tools allow forest managers to plan and schedule forest treatments including site preparation, thinning and harvests, insect and disease treatments, and tree planting. Phase II defined the Integration of GIS visualization and analysis tools to the existing WisFIRS Phase I business data tables leveraging ESRI ArcGIS Server. The prototype application focused on mapping and editing the spatial and corresponding business attribute data of forest parcels that had been ‘treated’ with a prescribed therapy (e.g., insecticide spraying). The prototype application successfully demonstrated the potential benefits and ranges of use for ArcGIS Server applications within WisFIRS.

Deliverables

• Database-driven content
  
• SDE-stored data
  
• Scalable Architecture
  
• SAN Storage
  
• VML-based selection tools
  
• Server-side views of forest parcel data

Technologies

• ASP.net 2.0
  
• C#
  
• IIS
  
• ArcGIS Server
  
• ArcSDE
  
• ArcIMS
  
• VML
  
• DHTML
  
• Oracle 10g

Project Profile

South Dakota Wildlife Information Land Management Application (WILMA)

Client:
South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks

Location:
Statewide, South Dakota

The South Dakota GFP is working with Timmons Group to build a centralized, web-based enterprise information system that will integrate GIS functionality with land management activities allowing for temporal tracking of land resources, management activities, land inventory, planning and goals and objectives reporting. The application will allow GFP managers, conservation officers, and other constituents edit enterprise geodatabases online.  The Enterprise Land Management Internet application will enable the agency to spatially manage all Game Production Areas (GPA’s) and their corresponding 5-year plans.  In addition, the powers of geospatial analysis will enable users to easily and readily extract information out of the application through custom reporting, mapping, and querying.

Timmons Group will be building the Enterprise Land Management Internet application utilizing ESRI’s ArcGIS Server, ArcSDE, and ArcIMS software to facilitate the creation, editing, validation, storage, and management of spatial data elements. The incorporation of web services adhering to the principles of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) will allow the GFP to have access to a suite of geospatial functionality through the lands management application and provide the added benefit of a reusable design model to be leveraged by future applications.

In addition to the enterprise internet application, Timmons Group will be developing a field-based mapping and data collection application.  The mobile solution will complement the web application and enable field users to check out attribute information (inventory data) for a GPA onto their mobile device and add, edit, and update data.  Upon returning to the office, mobile devices can be docked and data seamlessly synchronized back to the enterprise ArcSDE database.  This solution will utilize ESRI ArcGIS Mobile and SQL Server Compact technologies.

Project Profile

Integrated Forest Resource Information System (IFRIS)

Client:
Virginia Department of Forestry (VDOF)

Location:
Statewide, Virginia

IFRIS includes application modules that support enterprise computing functions, including the following:  federal reporting requirements compliance, time and accomplishment reporting, forest stewardship plan management, forest lands (tracts and parcels) management, automated fiscal and strategic goal reporting and field data collection.  IFRIS facilitated the elimination of many existing paper forms; cumbersome workflows consolidated data capture and maintenance.  Employee time and accomplishment (i.e., forestry practices) reporting are linked interactively to spatial features, including managed tracts and parcels facilitating advanced spatial decision support functions.  Advanced web-based mapping functions allow for the creation and manipulation of a variety of spatial features including forest stands, tracts and parcels / stands.

As part of the initial consulting services, Timmons Group assisted VDOF in the development of a supporting needs assessment and information architecture solution.  The needs assessment and initial due-diligence was accomplished through user interviews, information collection, legacy application and data review.  User interviews included a diverse set of users ranging from technical staff to foresters and field professionals.  The developed solution includes the use of ESRI’s ArcGIS Server©, ArcIMS© and ArcSDE© to meet spatial data management, reporting and analysis.  The architecture is extensible and offers geospatial web services as part of a service oriented architecture (SOA) model.

• IFRIS won the ESRI Special Achievement in GIS Award 2006 (IFRIS)
• IFRIS was selected by the American Council of Technology as an Intergovernmental Solutions Award Finalist in 2007
  
• IFRIS was selected, in October 2007, for the Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Information Technology by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers.  
  
• IFRIS was selected as one of only two applications in the world to be demonstrated at the ESRI International User Conference in August 2007 in San Diego California.
  
• IFRIS was published in ArcNews http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/fall06articles/virginia-dof.html in the fall of 06.