9. Resources Communications Data and GIS Management Business Processes Licensing Stakeholder Management Project Management
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Notes de l'éditeur
Thank everyone for joining. Explain presentation is developed from an article entitled “It’s time to bring l licensing out of it’s hiding place behind the filing cabinet “ in Geo:International and RICS magazine but developed further to understand SDI
Mouchel are not the experts in SDI Mouchel did not aim to create an SDI aimed for the benefits that an SDI brings and in the process created an SDI Technology, policies, standards, human resources related activities Acquire, process, distribute, use, maintain, and preserve spatial data But why should an SDI be developed? > We found that it was our vehicle to deliver the answer. You may find it could be yours. This presentation aims to answer the question of Why an SDI?, but mainly highlighting that we didn’t set out to create an SDI but showing the benefits of implementing one.
Licensing is horrible!!! We all hate it. No-one loves it yet it is a necessity for the purchasing of any data. In an organisation does the level of understanding needed to be increased and also some sort of Risk mitigation Have you ever tried to look for a licence or a project file? Often the person who signed it has moved on, or the licence renewal date is not checked. On that note what would happen if the data providers wanted to audit? Is it down the back of a cupboard, thrown away or just grown legs and decided to walk out of the project file? Mouchel experiences all these problems and our aim was to improve the current mechanisms which were in place.
Mouchel has over 11,000 employees each dealing with many clients per month let alone thinking about per year. Mouchel also buys data for it’s self and also on behalf of clients. Here is an example of just one data provider. How much time is wasted on this complex process exchanging data from client to Mouchel (Contractor) then back to client again? All of the data being exactly from the same source just a different licence number and contractors licence associated. How can this process be made more efficient, effective and, at the end of the day, cut costs? So Mouchel embarked on an 18months project to address and tackle this issue
The answer is simple – “have a direct relationship with the data provider” – much more elegant programme nesting the data under the MCCL in a central store for government clients which thus changed the process dramatically. Benefits of simplifying include: Single transfer of data Data on demand Process once only One central store to backup To name but a few
This diagram is extremely complicated, however if you bear with me, I can talk you through it. So here we have some examples of data use; For example, on the left hand side the use of a free web mapping portal to find an address of the local gym/pub/food/school in your area. On the other extreme you may want a system which sells your internal datasets, gives royalties to any third parties as well as licensing the purchaser. So different options require different levels of time and investment. At the same time your skills and expertise also need to increase. Then if we consider the types of data which can be used in these viewing options generalised data can be used in all of these systems but there comes a point where complex datasets are more justifiable and will bring greater Return on Investment if delivered through an SDI. So at what point would you start writing your business case to develop a system and then at what point would a company and its competitors decide to invest the money. At what point would you consider implementing additional services like WMS and WFS All worth considering at the start of the scoping phase.
For the basis of a Good licensing system we need to understand the metadata about projects including: users, the divisions, licences, data display and the metadata associated with these individual elements All of this information needs to be contained within the SDI. At the same time the benefits of the above simplification of storing the data needs to be assesses these can include: Facilitation of licensing compliance with associated projects, Enabling management of the clients licences Associated contractor licences and finally associated management.
So as a result the Solution it finally looked like the above “a friendly looking environment” which is easy to use, all the licences are linked digitally in the system with the metadata associated including users of certain projects and the geographical extents. So in essence a web portal, web and feature mapping services, a licensing portal, admin controls and finally interoperability with the market leading software. The benefits of the system are really quite immense and were definitely not realised before the start of the project.
So I mentioned earlier why an SDI? Mentioned that it was a vehicle to deliver the benefits well one of these vehicles in the SDI is the human resources capability. In such a technological world you may ask, but yes unfortunately with licensing we still required support to develop the SDI and then maintain the data and system going forward. We quickly realised that the resources which are required on such a large project, come from many different organisations and divisions within them. We also realised we needed to get the correct people involved in each of the different stages especially in a project which is so large. The interactions between the four main areas were all supported by Project Management and also Stakeholder Management.
So what are the headline figures and benefits of an SDI or Mouchel's equivalent (maps@mouchel) When asked in June 2009 83% of our employees felt that maps@mouchel brought “added value to the client”. An excellent figure considering the project had not gone into full implementation at this point in time. The project team agreed to extend the delivery deadlines and also agreed to extend the requirements through change procedures but we have still managed to deliver the maps@mouchel project (our version of an SDI) within 1.5% of the original budget. Many people wonder “How projects like maps@mouchel can justify the expenditure to run on a yearly basis?”. The project return on Investment was calculated at 111% or as a monetary value of just under £390k and has proved extremely beneficial calculation. Justification in particular difficult in these financial circumstances. Systems like maps@mouchel and having a central SDI can make your organisation different to the competition and provide added value to client and also show that your organisation isn’t afraid to invest for the future and manage risk of licence infringement. So why an SDI because the added value to the client as shown by this slide is extremely high. With values like this iit is much easier to justify to a Project Board the investment and development which is required.
Figures are one way of assessing what we have achieved but to understand the value further of an SDI there is nothing better than a compliment or comment a quote such as this which shows we are encouraging knowledge sharing through the maps@mouchel solution. Again this as an example of an SDI was a vehicle to achieve networking across the organisation. So looking to the future on this project may seem unfathomable but with a pool of resources who know how to use the system and have ideas for taking the system forward we listened to the Mouchel employees who were using the system and as this quote states we were able to aim for phase three which will deliver the project to private sector clients and also pay as you go datasets allowing for a reduction in cost of data by purchasing direct. The project is now moving into phase 3 and Mouchel has achieved OS partner status one step towards the delivery of Phase 3.
So in conclusion, our original questions was why an SDI? Maps@mouchel or an SDI brings the people who have need, want and have the skills to build the system. The solution needs to meet your requirement as pointed out the graph shown earlier. There is no point in developing a solution which is beyond the requirements of the organisation. What is required in the future considering initiatives like OGC and INSPIRE what are the impacts to an SDI. The final reason as to why an organisation should implement and SDI is because of the positive impact of empowering employees to use a system that will save the organisation money. The enthusiasm of the colleagues that help to develop and shape the system become part of the team and have there own unique selling point.