Highway to Handsome GIS

Powerco’s GIS roadmap

Lokesh AddagadaPowerco / 28 March 2014

Key Objectives Generate a return on the investment we have already made and to justify

future investment

Powerco GIS data to be made available to both on and offline users

To drive asset management excellence

Move from data input to data analysis - Ability for end users to submit data directly into GIS without delay, meaning Powerco employees have a greater QA focus rather than data inputting

Simplified access to data and associated applications

GIS data available in the way that people want to use it

List of Issues/Scenarios to be addressed

Non delivery of user demand for enhanced services and capabilities ◦ The current GIS services do not contain many features and tools that users have been exposed to

elsewhere and are requesting◦ Poor integration to cloud based services and data

  Weak controls and measures around data quality

◦ Data is being replicated multiple times ◦ Powerco staff are being used as data inputters rather than data auditors and quality controllers

  Data visibility and collection

◦ In most cases data is not entered into the GIS system for periods of months and in some cases years. This leads to the following issues: Unable to capitalise some assets Unable to provide asset location to evacuation contractors Unable to provide accurate, timely data to Outage Management Systems

◦ No ability to deploy electronic data to field staff for validating/updating, as a result data quality and decision quality is limited

  Incorrect balance between reactive and proactive workloads

◦ Powerco staff are increasingly being used to manage the existing aged system and develop custom built features that are out of the box with later versions of ArcGIS

 

Supporting Architecture

The proposed architecture changes will be delivered in four phases.

Project 10.1 Scope

Improvement Areas The objectives of the architecture vision are to provide the following improvement areas to the

GIS service

MappingFunctionality

 Simplicity & Flexibility

QA Focus Great Analysis Ability

Field Data Processing

Greater Visibility

Technology Neutral

Greater Integration

More Data Self Service Mobile Simple Access

Improve Productivit

yImprovement

Powerco GIS data to be made available to both on and offline users  ●   ● ● ● ●   ● ● ●   ●

Application sets to be intuitive and to provide greater tools and features than at present, in particular end user analysis     ●   ●       ●     ●

Ability for end users to submit data direct into GIS without delay, meaning Powerco employees have a greater QA focus rather than data inputting

  ● ● ●       ● ● ●   ●

Improved GIS data quality techniques, promoting GIS as a primary source of Powerco asset data    ● ● ● ●   ● ●   ● ●  

Simplified access to data and associated applications ●       ● ● ●   ●   ● ●

Project 10.1.2

Phase 10.1.2 - The vision of this phase is to upgrade and expand on the current web services that serve the GIS data

Provide GIS data to users over a common web platform Make the platform available to both internal and external users

Phase 10.1.3 The vision of this phase is to configure and introduce tools that help to achieve the following

goals: Provide workflow management tools that give users visibility of asset data over lifecycle stages Improve asset decision making

Phase 10.1.4 The vision of this phase is to improve GIS mobility, collaboration and accessibility to help

achieve the following goals: Mobile/device agnostic access to GIS data from the field User ability to self-serve and consume data in a personal and customised manner

Improvement area delivery phases The below charts depict the required improvement areas and the phase(s) which will be

delivering the improvements.

End Vision Statement The GIS programme of work, spread over four distinct phases, will transform the way in which

users consume and contribute to Powerco asset data. Key to the transformation and the success of the programme will be the way in which the data is presented and consumed.

  The two most critical phases to the programme are the first phase; 10.1.1, and the final phase

10.1.4. In the first phase the foundation for the entire programme vision will be laid. Upon this foundation, numerous features and enhancements will be built, until eventually the final phase 10.1.4 will deliver the majority of the improvements.

  As the majority of the improvements will be delivered in the final phase, it is crucial that all

phases are architected, engineered and implemented with this vision in mind. Any deviations from the vision, standards and principles may have an impact on the success of the programme, and thus should be managed carefully.

  The vision is for data access to be web based, device agnostic, and give the user the ability to

consume and contribute to the data whilst both on and offline and how they see fit.

This progression towards self-sufficiency and creativity will enable Powerco data owners and administrators to move into a more proactive role of data quality assessors rather than inputters.