Inventory

Smarter Forestry understands that inventory is important to the timber industry as it is in virtually any other business. Compared to other businesses, forestry has unique challenges such as every tree being unique in size and quality, trees growing and in some cases dying over time, and the geographic spread of items that need inventory. These challenges have led to sampling rather than complete inventory common in other businesses. Also, rather than sample every stand every year which is cost and time prohibitive, stands must be measured periodically and an update system must be used to update stands that do not get inventoried in a particular year from when they were inventoried to the current time. Smarter Forestry has experience designing efficient inventories and in performing the annual updates needed to keep databases current.

At Smarter Forestry, we literally wrote the book on forest inventory. Barry Shiver, CEO, of Smarter Forestry is the senior author of the college textbook for forest inventory: “Sampling Techniques for Forest Resource Inventory”.

Efficient inventory design is important, but good inventory procedures and follow-up auditing of field personnel insures that a quality inventory is obtained. At Smarter Forestry we insist that foresters conducting the inventory measure rather than ocularly estimate tree diameters (dbh) and tree heights.

Inventory

At Smarter Forestry, we literally wrote the book on forest inventory. Barry Shiver, CEO, of Smarter Forestry is the senior author of the college textbook for forest inventory: “Sampling Techniques for Forest Resource Inventory”. As an example of recent work, Barry designed an inventory to provide product volumes and values on 70,000 acres, across 13 counties, in an inventory that had to be conducted in a month. Rather than design an inventory that required sampling in every stand, the design that was used only required visiting about one third of stands and about 55% of total acres. The inventory was on time and on budget and the resulting estimates had a margin of error of less than 5%.

While efficient design is important, good inventory procedures and follow-up auditing of field personnel ensures that a quality inventory is obtained. Smarter Forestry audits 500-1000 stands each year to insure inventory quality for our clients.

Experienced. Objective. Tailored. Punctual. Smarter.

Smarter Forestry

Smarter Forestry, lead by CEO Barry Shiver, is a forestry management company that delivers Silvicultural Prescriptions and Audits, Forest Inventory, Inventory Updates, Forest Level Planning, Third Party Services, Financial Analysis, Forestry Consulting, and CFE classes. At Smarter Forestry , we help clients make better, smarter, decisions based on their individual objectives. Our unique skill sets combine silviculture, inventory, and growth and yield, along with the ability to really listen, to help us help you make better decisions.