8 pieces.
How is a timber data platform different from an ERP?An ERP records transactions as they happen. A data platform keeps them, joins them with other systems and answers questions across time.Does a forest products business need a data platform, a data warehouse or a new ERP?It depends where your wrong numbers come from: bad entry points to the ERP, short history to a warehouse, disagreeing systems to a platform.What is a semantic layer, and why does AI need one?A written model of what your data means. It turns AI's plausible wrong answers into refusals, at the cost of questions not yet modelled.Is a digital twin worth building for a forest or a mill?For a mill, rarely as a whole: model the decision that costs most when wrong. For a forest, the shared inventory a twin needs may come first.What should a forestry database hold, and where?Dated measurements and events with their source documents, keyed to the same stand and contract IDs as the map, plus a record of how those IDs change.What does it cost to leave forestry data on paper?Three costs: keying and handling, which benchmarks measure; exceptions found late; and questions never asked of the records, which nothing measures.Should you replace your ERP or put a data layer over it?Replace it when it can't be supported or can't record the business. If replacement is coming, a data layer built first can carry the history across.Why do reports from different systems never agree?Different definitions, different moments, or an error. A re-run test separates timing from the rest, including figures for closed months that keep moving.