Phare - Twinning project

 

Forestry Information System Implemented in Hungary

The first EU-financed Twinning Project in the Phare framework in the forestry sector has been finalized on April 30 th after a two-years implementation at the State Forest Service (=SFS) in Budapest. The Member State Team Leader was the German Ministry of Customer Protection, Food and Agriculture (BMVEL), ÖBf Consulting was junior partner of the consortium, having more than two thirds of the personal days provided. SFS, the Hungarian counterpart with each employee involved was a very engaged and constructive partner in every phase of the project. Despite the different mothertongues of the partners they could find a common language and the expected results of the project have been reached more than remarkable.

Goal of the Project

Purpose of the project was the legal harmonization in the area of forestry, the updating of the related procedures in the State Forest Service, the development of a new IT strategy and the development of the Forest Information System and to fully meet the requirements that derive from the tasks that are changed or newly created by the EU accession. The project was expected to deliver its results through several components.

Component 1: Legal Harmonization with Acquis Communautaire

The relevant Hungarian legal framework had be to screened according to the community’s laws and, where needed, supplements or changes recommended to be adopted in the Hungarian legal framework. It was revealed, that most of the Hungarian laws already had European standard and did not need amendments. One substantial part of the evaluation was the question about finance and subsidies.

Component 2: Modernization of the main processes of SFS and institutional building

Based on a detailed process analysis the main processes of SFS have been identified, evaluated and recommendations were given. Only in a few cases it was possible to remedy recognized deficits and it often led to compromises having to take into account the Hungarian legal framework. The project partners sometimes painfully had to learn, that technology only very limited can be used to close gaps of working processes.

Component 3: Development of the New IT-System

A totally new Information System (ERP) has been designed and thanks to three other parallel projects, (one on forest map digitalisation, one hardware and software supply financed also by Phare and national resources, the third one on descriptive data manipulation financed by SFS) the new system was possible to implement, install and it can be taken into production. Besides supporting duties of the forest administration (public procedures, subsidies, etc.) and of the planning departments (inventory and forest mgmt. planning) a Company-GIS has been realized during the two years of implementation. Thus this public-sectoral (governmental) ERP System can be considered one of the most advanced sectoral solutions all over Europe.

As a result of the project only one harmonized and standardized database will replace the several databases used formerly. The solution was designed in a central database, managing both descriptive data (acts, files, descriptive forestry data, etc.) as well as geographical data (forest compartments, cadastre, protected areas, etc.) being available to every end-user. Using a multi-tier architecture it is possible to separate visualization, program logic and data manipulation. Database and programs are located in the headquarters in Budapest. The users are working with a web-browser only, the data transfer is managed via internet technology.

A big challenge to the project was the prerequisite for both, visualizing and manipulating any geographical information via web-browser, as well as using geographical data outside the central database – “offline manipulation” in the course of forest inventory and updating base maps – and resending it into the database without any loss of information.

Component 4: Specification and Elaboration of Tender Documents for Hard- and Soft-ware Procurement

A large-scale hard- and software package was requested for installation of the ERP system. The purchase itself was out of the project’s tasks and was co-financed by Hungary. The elaboration of the tender documents as well as the participation in the evaluation process of the offered tenders however was part of the Twinning project too.

Component 5: Training

Besides three study-tours to German and Austrian institutions, many trainings have taken place in Budapest. Firstly to instruct key-users in the headquarters for the central data maintenance, secondly to get local administrators who are able to further development of the “living” system for themselves. Crucial parts for the administrators were done “on-the-fly”, meaning during programming and implementation.

Summary:

Hungary is the first country where a Twinning Project within the Phare programme in the forestry sector has been financed. The process of project implementation has been a big challenge both for technical and professional skills of all involved experts. Additionally, program and project management was heavily required, because especially in the second year three sub-projects have been developed, and up to fifteen experts from three countries have been working simultaneously.

The German BMVEL was responsible for the geo-data migration, for printing of working maps, and the transaction management of geo-data; ÖBf Consulting’s duties were the complete individual implementation of a Web-based GI system, as well as the technical integration of all IT sub-projects and the overall program management and at least the IT project management within the twinning project. SFS provided substantial contribution in process analysis, program development, testing and overall project management, including harmonisation with the other ongoing projects outside the Phare arrangements.

Within the area of activity of Öbf Consulting, Ms. Sommerauer was responisble for

• Program manamagement
• Project management
• Business process analyses

Besides this management work, Mr. Sommerauer was the general technical director of the project.

An overview (indeed in german) of the project you can find here.