Ministry of Forests and Range – IRMP Overview for 2007/08

1.  How do the ministry’s Information Management (IM) and Information Technology (IT) direction and strategies align with the ministry’s business objectives

The ministry’s IM/IT direction and strategies is to “champion and deliver innovative solutions”. The Information Management Group leads the ministry and the province’s forest industry to collaborate more effectively and efficiently through the application of information management. It produces innovative, corporate solutions to support the ministry's overall vision of maintaining a healthy and productive forest.

This involves translating business needs into IT requirements as well as incorporating technology opportunities that enable or support business applications and operations. Therefore, it is critical for the ministry to make effective use of IM/IT and to exploit technology opportunities in achieving its strategic goals amidst market and operational challenges. The technology strategies outlined in this IRMP reflect the ministry’s business needs for electronic service delivery, partnerships, data sharing, improved data and information management, electronic commerce and data interchange in a secure computing environment. The Ministry of Forests and Range has made significant progress in these areas.

The IM/IT strategy includes expanding/enhancing existing areas, while introducing two new strategies to address the coming shortage of IT talent and the need to better serve our customers within the Ministry.

The activities will focus on the following areas:

  • increasing e-services with the Forest Industry and integration of major applications
  • leveraging technology infrastructure and investigating new technologies
  • enhancing information management, security and privacy
  • valuing and managing IM/IT people resources
  • improving customer relationships

These strategies will assist in furthering the ministry’s goals of sustainable forest resources, sustainable forest benefits and being an effective forest manager.

2.  List significant investments or service enhancements

The ministry’s focus on stabilisation of its information resources continues. Major initiatives which are currently targeted for funding are shown below. This list will be confirmed in the Ministry IRMP as the funding decisions have not yet been finalized.

Project Target Completion Benefits/Outcomes
Forest Tenure Administration (FTA) and Electronic Submission Framework (ESF) Ongoing releases
  • Provides additional functionality to keep up changing business processes and improved electronic submissions
Reporting Silviculture and Land Status Tracking System (RESULTS) Ongoing releases
  • Provides additional functionality to keep up with changing business practices.
Harvest Billing System Enhancements Ongoing releases
  • Without these enhancements, the ministry will suffer delays in revenue, and ministry and industry productivity losses and relations issues.
Forest Stewardship Plans Application 2007/2008
  • Provides enhancements to the FSP system to provide additional functionality.
Cut Control System 2007/2008
  • Provides functionality required to meet Division 3.1 of the Forest Act, a new division that will address the management of cut control.
  • Allows the management of rules/exemptions/ overcuts from previous years by reconciling the volume of timber authorized by an agreement to be harvested. Licensees can track volumes throughout the year online, set cut control periods and billing of penalties.
Vegetation Resource Management Inventory System 2007/2008
  • Provides capability to update the Vegetation (forest) cover maps.
  • Provides updated tiles for Timber Supply Review.
  • Provides capability to update maps for Mountain Pine Beetle planning.
BCTS Cost Accounting System 2007/2008
  • Provides capability for BCTS to perform annual cost accounting.
  • Contributes to the determination of market price of timber in BC.
First Nations Management & Reporting System 2007/2008
  • Provides capability to track and report on FN related business within the Ministry.
Cultural Heritage Resource Information System 2007/2008
  • Provides capability to collect and manage cultural heritage resource information in a standard manner across the Ministry.
Consultation Tracking System 2007/2008 and beyond
  • Provides capability to track, manage and coordinate consultations with First Nations.
Corporate Resource Management Data Warehouse initiative 2007/2008 and beyond
  • Provide users access to additional spatial layers and datasets.
Data Quality Improvement Project 2007/2008 and beyond
  • Allows ongoing data quality analysis and reporting for the ministry business areas and to plan for data quality improvements where necessary.
  • Reduces long-term costs associated with data quality issues.
Stabilization of Major Upgrades and Infrastructure Changes 2007/2008
  • Ensures that the growth in data capacity requirements are supported.
  • Ensures that the growth in GIS and spatial requirements are supported.
Business Intelligence and Corporate Data Warehouse 2007/2008 and beyond
  • Expands the datamart for reporting by adding additional functionality and subject areas.
  • Provides additional reporting capabilities across data subjects.
Video-Conferencing 2007/2008
  • Expands the video-conferencing capability in the Ministry to include more districts, to purchase document sharing software and to purchase extra equipment as needed.
  • Alllows for reductions in travel costs
RFID Pilot project 2007/2008
  • Allows the Ministry to determine whether RFID technology has other practical uses within the Ministry.
Electronic Field Recorders Software Replacement 2007/2008
  • Provides the capability to re-measure field plots
FRPA Resource Evaluation Program Data 2007/2008
  • Provides a data management and reporting system for data captured through the “Checklist Model” approach for the Regional and District Resource Stewardship Monitoring (RSM) Program.