COFI – Council of Forest Industries
How COFI Replaced Manual Reports with Real-Time Dashboards in Just 20 Days
The Council of Forest Industries partnered with FreshBI to streamline their data processes, eliminate reporting delays, and deliver on-demand insights to their members with confidence.
Every week, COFI’s team faced the same challenge: hours spent compiling spreadsheets, checking formulas, and rushing to meet reporting deadlines. As their membership grew and demand for up-to-date forestry data increased, the old system couldn’t keep up.
They were committed to delivering timely, accurate insights to members across British Columbia’s forest industry. But their tools were slowing them down.
That’s when they partnered with FreshBI
COFI – Council of Forest Industries
The BC Council of Forest Industries (COFI) represents the majority of lumber, pulp and paper, and manufactured wood producers across British Columbia. As an industry-leading organization, COFI plays a critical role in advocating for the interests of its members and collaborating with government, First Nations, communities, labor, and other stakeholders. Their goal is to foster a healthy, diversified, and sustainable forest industry that benefits people and families across BC.
A core part of COFI’s value proposition lies in analyzing and delivering comprehensive insights related to lumber harvesting and pricing. To maintain its leadership position and better serve its members, COFI recognized the need to modernize how it delivers these data-driven insights.
Problem or Challenge
As COFI’s membership base grew and market expectations evolved, clients increasingly demanded timely and accurate data regarding forest product exports, lumber harvesting activities, and market pricing. This data needed to be accessible in real-time and presented through interactive dashboards that support decision-making.
However, COFI’s internal processes for compiling and analyzing this information were manual, labor-intensive, and time-consuming, creating bottlenecks that hindered both the organization’s efficiency and its ability to deliver insights at the pace required by its stakeholders.
Objectives
To address these challenges, COFI aimed to:
- Streamline data compilation and analysis through automation
- Ensure real-time access to forest industry data
- Develop interactive and user-friendly dashboards that empower clients to analyze information independently
- Enhance the accessibility and reliability of its insights and reporting tools
- Align with evolving market demands and client expectations for digital transformation
Solution
To meet their evolving data needs, COFI partnered with FreshBI, an AI company specializing in intelligent insight delivery and enterprise data transformation. The solution combined Python automation, SQL databases, and Power BI dashboards, not only solving current challenges but also laying the groundwork for AI integration.
This future-ready platform established:
- Automated data pipelines that could feed future LLMs for narrative reporting or natural language queries
- A structured, analysis-ready data lake suitable for training or integrating generative AI
- Dashboards that empower clients today and provide a launchpad for predictive and conversational interfaces tomorrow
Process
The project followed a clear and structured approach:
- Initial Assessment of COFI’s existing data handling practices and client needs
- Development of Python Scripts to automate data extraction, cleansing, and structuring
- Integration into SQL Database for consistent and secure storage
- Dashboard Design in Power BI, tailored to the specific needs of forest industry professionals
- Deployment of Exportable Tables and filters to ensure usability and client independence
This process ensured that the entire data pipeline from raw data to client-facing insights was efficient, scalable, and tailored to industry-specific requirements.
Outcome / Results
The collaboration between COFI and FreshBI yielded measurable results:
- Significant reduction in time and resources previously spent on manual data gathering and analysis
- Enhanced ability for COFI to deliver real-time insights
- Improved client satisfaction through access to intuitive dashboards that support informed decision-making
- Modernization of COFI’s internal data infrastructure and reporting capabilities
The partnership empowered COFI to better meet the expectations of its members and positioned the organization as a tech-forward leader in forestry analytics.
Key Features
- Real-time data extraction from a national lumber statistics API using Python
- Automated data cleansing and structuring for efficient processing
- SQL database integration for for secure and scalable data storage
- Interactive Power BI dashboards tailored to COFI’s unique data and audience
- User-friendly filtering and export options that allow users to access the data they need without assistance
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