After a successful release in Australia, Universal Forest Systems has announced that they will be launching the Forest Inventory Reporting System (FIRS) in New Zealand at the Foresttech conference in November.
“FIRS is an innovative end-to-end solution for designing forest inventories, capturing data, analysing the captured data and reporting the results” says Ashley Goldstraw, Forestry Apps Developer for Universal Forest Systems. “It’s a web-based application that supports the design of inventories in a browser and includes tools for digitising, creating plot locations, managing field devices and tracking progress”.
“You can undertake a complete forest inventory without the need for any other software, but it still integrates with other systems if you want to bring your own data” says Ashley Goldstraw. “Plots are transferred to the Firs Data Capture (FirsDC) app on an Android device via the internet, eliminating the need to bring the device into the office. Once the plot templates are downloaded to the device, the app may run without internet”.
Inventory crews may also use the integrated GPS to locate plots in the field, capture data, check the data with built-in data validations and view summary statistics. Completed plots are then uploaded back to FIRS via the internet, where they can instantly be summarised.
“Inventory data is volumated and grown using built-in biometric equations, which users may interact with. Once you have your biometrics and grading set up, the results are available as soon as the data is loaded into FIRS. There is no messing around with cables, emailing files or transferring to folder locations, and the data has already been exposed to dozens of validation checks before it arrives. FIRS has almost eliminated data management overheads.” said Elspeth Baalman, Forest Biometrician at Universal Forest Systems.
Ashley and Elspeth will be outlining their new Inventory Reporting System in just over two weeks in Rotorua, New Zealand on 14-15 November and then again in Melbourne, Australia on 20-21 November as part of the ForestTECH 2018 series. Full details on the programmes and pre-conference workshops (some are already full so you’ll need to check on availability on-line) can be found on the event website, www.foresttech.events.
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