GIS Development: December 2007: Building an Enterprise GIS

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Looking at SAP through the Geo-window

Bart Reynaert
ICT Consultant, Pidpa , Belgium
gis@pidpa.be

Over the last years Pidpa has evolved from being a company with a lot of inhouse developers and proprietary mainframe-based information systems, to a company where the IT strategy now comprises a standard software approach. The central IT-guideline can be summarized in one sentence as 'buy what you can find, and build yourself what you can't find'.

This approach is mainly based on the typical ERP business model, stressing the availability of rich generic software that fits the needs of many companies. It limits the amount of programming required and shifts the effort to customizing the application to the company needs. In the long term this also ensures us of continuous development and improvements in the base-product due to a large user-base. The choice to implement SAP company-wide is indisputably a corner stone of the corporate IT strategy.

Also the GIS implementation is a good example of this approach. Using the ArcGIS family of products from ESRI as a solid basis, complimented with the ArcFM solution from Miner & Miner, we have a powerful GIS software base. This choice allowed us to build a firm stable database-centric gis-environment for water distribution and sewage network management.

GIS VISION
The GIS implementation started out in the technical/engineering departments, but by linking GIS to several other enterprise information systems, a lot of other users discovered the advantages of a geographic view. A strategy that results in a continuous growth and further integration of GIS in all kinds of business processes, making the retrieval of data easier and presentation clearer for a lot of users.

We work with one master GIS-database that contains all geographic information. By storing identifiers as attributes in GIS-objects, that match with objects in other information systems, there's a connection possible between GIS and other information systems. Through a number of interfaces GIS data and business data can easily be combined. The ICT department maintains the master GIS database, datamodel and the GIS-applications, but the geographic data itself is maintained by a group of over 20 editors.

All departments within the organization have access to GIS-view applications connecting to this database, and several departments also use tools like ArcView to create their own ad-hoc maps or display their data in a geographical view for analysis and reporting.

GIS ARCHITECTURE
Pidpa has implemented quite an extensive GIS architecture over the last years in 5 phases.

PHASE 1: GIS EDIT ENVIRONMENT
The initial GIS project had as a goal to create a solid central geographical master database, based on a rich water distribution network data model, and implement a powerful set of tools to maintain all this geographic data. Old paper maps were scanned and gradually converted to one vectorised seamless map, and a lot of attributes were added.

Moving from a paper-based environment to a software based environment was a big change and a lot of work processes had to be re-defined. But having everyone use one master geographic dataset, had huge advantages and minimized errors.

PHASE 2: GIS VIEW ENVIRONMENT -GEOLINK
Shortly after the database and the editenvironment were operational, a browser based GIS view solution, called GeoLink, was created. An ESRI ArcIMS based solution, allowing everyone within the company to easily view GIS data of the water distribution network. GeoLink also contains a number of interfaces to SAP, SCADA, Hummingbird document management, scanned archives, making all kinds of business data that can be linked to a location, accessible from GIS in just a mouseclick. Geolink allows everyone within the company to quickly access data from different information systems by using a location in a geographical view as a starting point.

PHASE 3: GEOLINK ONLINE
A lot of external parties like contractors, fire departments, municipalities,… regularly requested maps from Pidpa with information on the exact location of the water mains. Handling these requests was a manual, costly and time-consuming process that led to the creation of a GeoLink Online website. This website now allows external parties to access a subset of the geographical data of our water distribution network, in a very intuitive and user friendly browser application over the internet. A development that saved us 1 FTE, and provides immediate and upto- date information to other parties 24/7 without any manual action from Pidpa.

PHASE 4: INFONET AND GEOLINK HIDRONET
With the new sewage business, a different kind of geographical network data needed to be maintained and new functionalities were necessary. Our GIS platform offered a lot of possibilities to do so, but the total solution was enriched by also implementing Wallingford Infonet as a specific sewage toolset. The sewage data is not created by editors in the master GIS database, but mainly delivered to Pidpa by external parties. Infonet is used to check, analyse and update this data in a separate sewage database. The data is then exported regularly to the Master GIS database, so that it can be made available internally as well as externally via a GeoLink Hidronet site. This phase is still going on and will continue to evolve rapidly along with the expanding sewage actvities.

PHASE 5: GEOLINK MOBILE
Over 70 fieldcrews are working throughout our distribution area, and also have a need for accurate and detailed data about the water distribution or sewage network, as well as information on SAP work orders. Up to today, the field crews still mainly use paper maps and work orders on paper. A work process that can be optimized by installing a laptop in every field-crew vehicle, with access to up-to-date GIS data and SAP work order data. A roll-out of laptops with a raster version of local maps has been started and will continue till early 2008. In spring 2008 a fully functional mobile GIS application that can work locally as well as via online GPRS connection, will be implemented. In a next phase also SAP work orders will be no longer distributed on paper, but retrieved via laptop and mobile connection, limiting the administrative overhead drastically.

A CLOSER LOOK ON GEOLINK : LINKING GIS WITH OTHER KEY IT SYSTEMS
GeoLink is a flexible GIS viewer framework, based on ESRI ArcIMS technology. The Geolink sites provide easy access to geographic information to anyone within the company, or to external parties over the internet. The standard and powerful gis-functionalities have been used out-of-the-box where possible, limiting the amount of additional development in javascript or ASP code. Pidpa is very much aware of the fact that a lot of data used throughout the company can be referenced to a geographic location like a street, connection point, infrastructure, water main. etc. Imagine how much GIS can help to immediately pinpoint an exact location while creating a new SAP maintenance order or quickly determine the location of a problem in the network (e.g. a ruptured main), and subsequently create a list of the customers that will be affected. Merely two examples of a wide range of logical associations in information that users make in their everyday work. With GeoLink, we can disclose GIS functionality to technical as well as non-technical departments and link geographic information to corresponding information within many other company information systems like SAP, SCADA or scanned archives.

The GeoLink framework has a number of benefits :

The application runs in a standard web browser and is very intuitive, limiting the need for extensive training. Internal users just had a 2-hour demo of the possibilities and there were very few usage problems.
Several GeoLink sites have been created on the same base, each displaying other Geographic datasets. The first one that was created was GeoLink Distribution, showing all water distribution network data. But the same basic structure is also used for a GeoLink site displaying sewage data and a GeoLink Online site showing a subset of the internal geographic data for external parties.
It is based on ArcIMS server technology and server licensing. This does not only limits licensing costs, but also adds flexibility for a large user base of over 100 internal viewers and more than 400 registered external users
There was an optimization of work processes. All geographic information is immediately accessible on every workstation, and interfaces to other information systems like SAP could be easily added, maximizing the use of the application as entry point to all kinds of location linked data.

THE ROAD AHEAD
We have accomplished a lot of our goals in setting up a powerful gis-edit environment, and a flexible and performant view environment linked to other company information systems. But there is still some work to be done to really integrate the field crews work processes with the workflow currently present in the office.

Another focus-point will be implementing more geo reporting and analysis functionalities, supporting management in their decision making process. Important factor in this is even further integration, respecting every information systems qualities and specific functionalities, but making this massive amount of information quickly and unambiguously available.