What is a data model?

A data model is the agreed map of the things a business records and how they relate. Wikipedia defines it as "an abstract model that organizes elements of data and standardizes how they relate to one another and to the properties of real-world entities". Elsewhere in the entry it gives as an example "the customers, products, and orders found in a manufacturing organization". TDWI, a data training and research organisation, calls it "a blueprint or architectural plan for organizing information".

What it contains

A model names the entities, such as contract, load, board, order and invoice. It lists what is recorded about each, such as a load's weight, species, origin and date. And it sets out how they link: which loads belong to which contract, and which invoice lines settle which order.

Why it decides what you can know

A report can only use facts the model records and links the model keeps. If a purchase order has no field for the date the goods were expected, no tool can say how often suppliers were late. If a load isn't linked to the stand it came from, no report can compare harvest against inventory.

From Quarri's own work with a lumber and millwork manufacturer: under 4 in 10 purchase orders arrived on time, across 13,000+ closed orders, and late ones averaged about nine days.

The model sets the ceiling, and capture sets the floor. A field the model holds but people leave blank, or overwrite, answers nothing either.

In a timber business

The thing being modelled changes form from stage to stage. A model that treats each stage as unrelated can report each one well and never connect them. The links between stages, from load to contract and from production run to the logs that fed it, matter most.

What it isn't

A data model isn't the database, though databases implement it. Nor is it fixed: it changes when the business starts asking new questions.

What to check

List the questions your reports must answer. For each, trace the facts and links it needs through the model. Then check that those fields are actually filled in.

How Quarri works explains the platform as a layer over existing systems, not a migration.

Quarri is an AI-native data platform for the timber supply chain. It connects buying, production, sales and inventory for forest management, sawmill, wood products and pulp, paper and packaging operators.