Author: DigiConsult ltd

Integrated Project Delivery is built on collaboration, which in turn is built on trust. Effectively structured, trust-based collaboration encourages parties to focus on project outcomes rather than their individual goals. Without trust-based collaboration, IPD will falter and participants will remain in the adverse and antagonistic relationships that plague the construction industry today. IPD promises better outcomes, but outcomes will not change unless the people responsible for delivering those outcomes change. Thus, achieving the benefits of IPD requires that all project participants embrace  of Integrated Project Delivery

The principles of an

Integrated Project Delivery in construction:

Mutual Respect and Trust
In an integrated project, owner, designer, consultants, constructor, subcontractors and suppliers understand the value of collaboration and are committed to working as a team in the best interests of the project.

Mutual Benefit and Reward
All participants or team members benefit from IPD. Because the integrated process requires early involvement by more parties, IPD compensation structures recognize and reward early involvement. Compensation is based on the value added by an organization and it rewards “what’s best for project” behavior, such as by providing incentives tied to achieving project goals. Integrated projects use innovative business models to support collaboration and efficiency.

Collaborative Innovation and Decision Making
Innovation is stimulated when ideas are freely exchanged among all participants. In an integrated project, ideas are judged on their merits, not on the author’s role or status. Key decisions are evaluated by the project team and, to the greatest practical extent, made unanimously.

Early Involvement of Key Participants
In an integrated project, the key participants are involved from the earliest practical moment. Decision making is improved by the influx of knowledge and expertise of all key participants. Their combined knowledge and expertise is most powerful during the project’s early stages where informed decisions have the greatest effect.

Early Goal Definition
Project goals are developed early, agreed upon and respected by all participants. Insight from each participant is valued in a culture that promotes and drives innovation and outstanding performance, holding project outcomes at the center within a framework of individual participant objectives and values.

Intensified Planning
The IPD approach recognizes that increased effort in planning results in increased efficiency and savings during execution. Thus the thrust of the integrated approach is not to reduce design effort, but rather to greatly improve the design results, streamlining and shortening the much more expensive construction effort.

Open Communication
IPD’s focus on team performance is based on open, direct, and honest communication among all participants. Responsibilities are clearly defined in a no-blame culture leading to identification and resolution of problems, not determination of liability. Disputes are recognized as they occur and promptly resolved.

Appropriate Technology
Integrated projects often rely on cutting edge technologies. Technologies are specified at project initiation to maximize functionality, generality and interoperability. Open and interoperable data exchanges based on disciplined and transparent data structures are essential to support IPD. Because open standards best enable communications among all participants, technology that is compliant with open standards is used whenever available.

Organization and Leadership
The project team is an organization in its own right and all team members are committed to the project team’s goals and values. Leadership is taken by the team member most capable with regard to specific work and services. Often, design professionals and contractors lead in areas of their traditional competence with support from the entire
team, however specific roles are necessarily determined on a project-by-project basis. Roles are clearly defined, without creating artificial barriers that chill open communication and risk taking

Information technology in the construction industry

In completed developments, the potential uses of ICT can be overwhelming, with developments such as airports and hospitals having very complex and intensive demands. The development of smart buildings is now taking this intensive demand for ICT to other building types, with requirements for; automated systems, intelligent building management, adaptive energy systems, assistive technologies, remote monitoring and so on. In addition, the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), where unique identifiers are allocated to physical objects, can enable almost anything be connected to a network. there is a need for buildings and the wider built environment to be both future-proof and flexible. Designers need to ensure that every opportunity is taken to identify the most efficient solutions and take advantage of the new opportunities offered by technology, whilst also creating a resilient and adaptable infrastructure capable of many years of operation without costly upgrades. This requires that designers work across a number of different timescales, devising short, medium and long-term strategies for ICT.

Advanced construction technologies are commonly described as including (amongst many others) advanced forms of:

•         3D printing
•         Materials.
•         building information modeling (BIM).
•         Cladding systems.
•         Computer aided design and computer aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM).
•         Construction plant.
•         Modern methods of construction.
•         Modular construction.
•         Offsite manufacturing.
•         Prefabrication and preassembly.
•         Site investigations and surveying.
•         Substructure works.
•         Water engineering.
•         Temporary works.
•         Smart technology.
•         Robotics.
•         GPS controlled equipment.

ICT adoption for building project management

– Effective flow of data and communication at every stage of a construction project is essential for achieving required coordination and collaboration between the project participants, leading to successful management of the projects. In present scenario, when project participants are geographically separated, adoption of information communication technology (ICT) enables such effective communication.

Role of ICT in the construction industry

The role of the computer as a support tool in professional engineering and appropriate information technology has significant potential to make the profession more effective and efficient. If professionals do not work to such improvements, the business will be operated by other organizations who have achieved new levels of performance by the adoption of a new strong information technology strategy. Information technology has been rather slow to develop in the construction industry as compared to other industries. Cooperation in sharing information and commissioning software collectively can solve the financial problem to a great extent. With the age of information already starting and this era transforming the lives and business all over the globe, can the construction industry with all its multi-disciplinary problems lag behind? Information technology culture must pervade the organization systematically so as to provide cost-effective solutions and become beneficial.

Some of the most accommodating forms of information technology for the construction industry:

• Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has a strong appeal in the construction industry, with many benefits due to the constant change of workers and setup of new job site locations. Often, construction workers require access to company data to provide timely decision-making and reporting ability while working in the field.

Construction companies benefit from the cloud’s ability to offer increased freedom and easy access to information at any time, from any location, such as job sites, customer locations, and satellite offices.

• Project Management Software

Project management software allows contractors to manage complicated business processes with planning, organizing, and managing the various resource pools available. Construction companies are required to deliver projects on time and according to budget.

With project management software, the construction industry has the ability to execute projects more efficiently, while delivering high-quality results and increasing their overall business profitability.

• Mobile Device Management

In the construction industry, employees use mobile devices as their main line of communication during a project. Whether it’s emails, texts, or phone calls, the smartphone has become the construction industries primary tool of communication.

With the ever-growing amount of mobile devices and applications, mobile device management is increasingly important. With mobile device management software, the construction industry can optimize the functionality of mobile devices, while protecting the configuration settings and data for mobile devices in a network; thus lowering the overall business security risks and support costs.

From the efficiency to the ease of build, it’s no surprise that modular construction is sweeping the country. More and more commercial contractors and residential homebuilders are adopting for modular construction and for good reason. Modular construction is having its own Renaissance right now—shedding the stigma of “prefab,” “manufactured homes,” or (horror of all horrors) the old “double-wide trailer.” High-end homes, apartment complexes, and even high-rise hospitals are going modular.

few reasons why going modular is gaining popularity in the construction industry:

1. Modular Construction on the Rise

There are a growing number of construction companies turning to modular construction to get the job done. In fact, according to FMI’s Prefab and Modular Construction Survey, 35% of contractors in the U.S. are implementing modular construction in the design phase of the building process.

Likewise, nearly 40% of the contractors surveyed said that prefab and modular construction is a growing part of their companies as well as part of their future strategic construction initiatives.

The country is already experiencing an increase in modular construction, especially in the healthcare industry. Both the Miami Valley Hospital Heart and Orthopedic Center as well as the 188,000-square-foot Harris Methodist Hospital in Texas were built using modular components.

2. All About Quality Control

There are multiple reasons why modular construction is gaining popularity in the U.S. and quality control is at the top of the list.

According to an article noting an interview with Paul Tansill on modular construction, Tansill describes modular manufacturing as a process where tight tolerances and quality control are top priorities.

Unlike traditional construction practices, modular buildings are assembled in controlled environments. This means the majority of the build process is sheltered from the elements.

Likewise, all building materials are stored in the same controlled environment, which reduces imperfections like lumber warp.

In addition, builders are able to work in the same controlled space with all tools and equipment at their disposal. This leads to better built structures and superior quality standards.

3. Faster Build Times

Because construction teams are able to work in controlled environments using repetitive techniques and convenient equipment like large-scale jigs, modular construction results in faster build times.

Weather delays are no longer a factor with modular construction either, so contractors are able to complete daily build goals and easily avoid setbacks that are common with onsite construction.

4. Cost Savings

Modular construction has numerous cost benefits over traditional onsite construction. As mentioned above, modular construction decreases build times, which greatly reduce labor costs.

Additionally, because modular building facilities use precision construction equipment and detailed designs, the building process is less wasteful. Each structure uses exact amounts of lumber and other materials.

5. Environmental Benefits

Because modular construction facilities take advantage of production repetition common with assembly line manufacturing, the modular building process uses less energy than traditional construction.

Unlike onsite construction practices, waste in modular construction is used instead of discarded.

Many modular construction facilities store unused materials in controlled environments and recycle them for use in other projects. This helps reduce the 135 million tons of construction waste that ends up in landfills each year.

When it comes to construction efficiency, modular building is quickly becoming the new industry standard.

Across-the-board transformation is disrupting the hospitality industry. Organisations can prepare for a future expanded loyalty ecosystem, staff-less lobbies and tech-driven guest experiences. Today many digital convenience and options continue to evolve along with mainstream consumer expectations and an Enterprise Command & Control Center platform is something that will revolutionise the hospitality industry. As technology reinvents every touch point on the travel journey, the on-site experience is no exception. Guests’ growing comfort with technology is driving several disruptive trends and an EC3 platform is an all-in-one tool to perfectionise your guest experience as well as your hotel management system.

An Enterprise Command & Control Centre (EC3) platform to uplift your hotel management system

An EC3 for the hospitality sector should effectively be the lifeblood of your property, controlling and automating any number of hotel operations. That is why a hotel’s EC3 platform is so important and why shrewd attention should be paid to it. The nature of a hotel’s EC3 platform and capability is evolving all the time and hotels need to stay up-to-date to maintain the ease of operations they now enjoy, as well as ensuring a positive experience for their guests.

It is no longer enough to control core functions like guest registration, inventory maintenance, housekeeping, and finance. The best property management systems can now encompass the all-important facets of the hotel operations – one example is the impact on guest services, loyalty and guest experience which can be improved dramatically. If an EC3 platform is not already viewed as the primary control centre for a hotel, it soon will be. Given most operations are largely integrated, no critical decisions will be enacted without first passing through a single window platform.

The features and capabilities of an EC3 platform for the hospitality management

• Registration, guest accounting and reservations management capabilities

Guest-facing applications are hugely important for hotelier’s in regards to capturing bookings, checking-in or out, and integrating with other channels like in-room systems, central reservation systems, and online travel agents.

• Housekeeping features

Guest satisfaction can be impacted by many factors, including housekeeping. If a room is not cleaned properly or in a timely manner, or room service and other requests aren’t fulfilled, a bad review will not be far away. A good platform will help organise this process by storing data and helping create personalised guest profiles.

• Technology and data integration

Being a key part of day-to-day operations, it is imperative the platform integrates easily with your other technologies, such as a channel management system, and data sources to ensure everything runs smoothly.

• Mobile capabilities

Mobile optimisation is a key component of any hotel technology, and that includes the processes involved in a property management system such as mobile check-in and communication with staff.

• Point-of-sale features

A payment system built into a platform is perfect for processing minor guest charges such as transport tickets, attraction tickets, postage stamps, or other sundry items.

• Performance reporting

Visibility into the key drivers of your property’s performance and revenue is essential to successful business strategy. The mountain of data hotels are sitting on is invaluable and a good platform will provide reporting capabilities.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a technological capability can enable new opportunities and help achieve business goals in the construction space. Armed with complex algorithms and features that allow machines to display their own type of understanding and problem solving, AI has the potential to support the construction industry to cross new frontiers. AI will push innovation to new levels, and what construction processes may be made possible through AI’s continued evolution in the smart building era.

The roles of artificial intelligence  

In the construction sector, AI is most often used across four main areas. These stages cover planning and design, administrative management, construction methodology, and post-construction.

Planning with equipment

Construction plans can be created quickly by implementing artificial intelligence. Autonomous equipment is considered to be a form of artificial intelligence as it is aware of its surroundings. It is also capable of navigation without human input, meaning it can work alone without an operator or driver. In the planning stages, AI machinery can survey a proposed construction site and gather enough information to create a multitude of planning assists, such as 3D maps, blueprints and construction plans.

Administrative roles

Artificial intelligence can also be applied once construction has moved past the planning stages and the actual building process begins.  Various programs and software can be used to manage projects and control specific tasks within a project. For example, workers can input sick days or sudden departures. Vacancies for job posts can also be entered. With this information gathered, the system can build a database and use that knowledge to adapt the projects as needed. The artificial intelligence of the system will understand whether or not a task needs to be moved and reassigned, such as when a worker if off sick. Best of all the software will do this of its own accord.

Construction methodology

With a wealth of information gathered and stored in its database knowledge, artificial intelligence can support engineers by informing them of how projects should be completed. The software can not only inform a process, but suggest processes based off its understanding of previous data of similar projects. For example, if engineers were working on a proposed new bridge, AI systems would be able to advise and present a case for the best method to construct the bridge.  It would base this answer on past projects from the last 50 years of work, as well as cross referencing with pre-existing blueprints and maps for the design and implementation stages of the project. By having this information to hand, as well as having it cross-checked in real time against previously gathered information, engineers can make crucial decisions based on the evidence that they may not have had previously at their disposal.

Post – construction

Be it a commercial or domestic project, after it has been completed, artificial intelligence is frequently integrated into the live structure in the form of various software and hardware. Back in 2016, the Wynn hotel chain declared that it would be installing Amazing Echo software in to each one of its rooms in its Las Vegas hotel by the end of 2017. These devices can be used from the comfort of the room to control various aspects such as lighting, temperature, and any kind of audio-visual equipment contained in the room. These systems can also be installed in a domestic setting; with such artificial intelligence systems already on the rise within homes.

The support artificial intelligence brings in the construction industry

The importance of information
It is important to hold as much information as you can about a project, including management decisions and this is easier to do with the help of building information modelling (BIM).

Conversational features can be added with the use of virtual assistants (VAs) that will also provide a person with information. By combining VAs alongside NFC (near-field communication), VAs can give additional information to the building itself in real-time from various sensors in the building. For example, if there were structural problems with a building, then VAs could inform engineers specifically where the problem was and how it can be fixed.

VAs, AIs and building design software can help make savings in the construction sector, whilst keeping up the same standard of work. As the future of AI becomes more of a reality within construction, only time will tell how reliant upon intelligent machines we will have to be in order to construct innovative building designs.

When encountering the buffet of web hosting plans for the first time, customers can easily be overwhelmed by the various options, configurations, and acronyms. Matching the right server portions and hosting flavours to your appetite can be daunting. Boasting high-powered and reliable infrastructure, cloud hosting is a fast-growing option for consumers with a somewhat more refined palate, while shared hosting serves up affordable, easy comfort food. Read on the feast of information about these two savoury web hosting choices.

Cloud hosting, a premium option that touts performance, reliability, and scalability, entails connecting and virtualizing several servers to share storage and processing resources. The hardware components are optimized to handle particular tasks, and extra servers are ready to fill in if something breaks or has to go offline. Customers can provision or turn off additional computing resources to meet traffic demands, making the product particularly relevant to growing businesses.

Shared hosting, the most common plan on the market, resonates especially with first-time site owners and individual developers. In a shared hosting provider’s datacenter, individual servers can host hundreds or thousands of websites. Several customers share each server, meaning that storage and computing resources are limited. As the cheapest and most accessible type of hosting, shared packages often come with extra features such as one-click software installations, marketing credits, and website builders.

Server Resources, Configuration, and Management

Shared hosting providers make an effort to set the table with everything beginners need to get online, often including a free domain registration, drag-and-drop site builder, email accounts, search engine marketing credits, automatic backups, and a security certificate. The host will take care of the technical details of server maintenance such as operating system updates and security patches.

Cloud hosting, however, takes a different approach; multiple servers pool their resources together and cooperate to host multiple websites. The added hardware means more resources are available to each customer — and even more can be tacked onto your account with just a click of the mouse.

 Scalability

Even though numerous shared hosting providers tout unlimited resources for storage, bandwidth, databases, email accounts, and the like, so-called unlimited hosting is a myth — shared hosts commonly ask customers to enjoy their “unlimited hosting” within certain parameters deemed fair to the other customers on the server. Websites that exceed the allocated resource usage are often penalized with fees or decreased performance.

Performance

Shared hosting speed, on the other hand, can fluctuate between perfectly acceptable and downright slow. Customers’ site speed is largely dependent on the performance of other websites on the same server. The more a shared server is maxed out, whether in terms of the number of accounts or the amount of traffic it needs to handle, the slower it processes requests for information.

Cost

shared hosting gets an edge over cloud hosting when it comes to pricing and bonuses. It’s a perfect plan for those on a budget or small business owners because they can have access to all the basic features they need to get started and do so affordably. Cloud hosting, on the other hand, takes the crown when it comes to security, speed, performance, and uptime. All the features packed into this plan making it ideal for medium to large sized business or generally those websites that tend to receive huge traffic.

The EC3 unique centre which controls and integrates all existing and future technologies that would be required in any large scale real estate or smart city project. What sets it apart is the use of intelligent technologies and its ability to achieve integration and control of all the clients assets, from Energy, Security, Water, Sensor and others. In addition to collecting and analyzing all the data gathered in real time, the EC3 also ensures that emerging technologies such as Machine learning, Artificial intelligence, IOT and others will allow the snart-cities to speed up the response time to its users

Anatomy Of An Enterprise Command Center
An enterprise command center gives IT teams the situational awareness and tools to manage proactive and reactive issues that affect business services and operations.

The architecture of an enterprise command center includes the business and IT stakeholders, technology tools and the infrastructure elements that interact with and comprise IT services for the enterprise.

• Business Units. As enterprise IT teams evolve to serve as internal IT service providers to their business units, a command center provides the platform to deliver and optimize these services in a multi-tenant way.
• IT and Application Services Teams. Whether enterprise IT is organized by technology towers, service categories or applications, multiple “tower” teams need to collaborate and have a consolidated view across their infrastructure to move fast enough to meet the needs of today’s business. The enterprise command center provides the platform that teams can leverage to coordinate response and share common services.
• Tools Stack. Enterprises will have multiple IT operations tools in their stack, including ITSM tools and technology- or application-specific monitoring point tools. The command center integrates this myriad of tools into a single framework that leverages APIs and automation to consolidate alerts, events and metrics across tools to provide the right insights to drive action.
• IT Infrastructure. The enterprise command center has line of sight to all infrastructure, cloud and application elements that are used across the enterprise IT environment. The technologies may or may not be directly owned or managed by central IT, but is part of the integrated framework to provide enterprise-wide visibility.
• Vendors. With new models of working with service providers and vendors, the command center provides secure, role- and time-based access to external partners who provide IT services to the enterprise.
  The command center is a framework that brings together these elements and enables the enterprise to consolidate management across their infrastructure, tool sets, IT teams and stakeholders.

In the construction industry, there is a necessity for innovative methods to improve the construction efficiency that proves to be true happening now and for soon expected changes. The given paper studies information and communication technologies concerning their usage within the construction industry with purposes to increase construction efficiency and solve the special challenges such as sustainable design and construction.

About ICT in construction

Information and Communication Technology in Construction Industry Combination of site positioning, design requirements, materials selection, budget constraints and the availability of specialized skills makes each building project absolutely unique. Also, the construction industry is well-known for its highly fragmented and competitive environment. Nowadays the majority of building projects are hardly treated without traditional communication means, such as face-to-face meetings and the exchange of paper documents. Despite it there is a huge potential for increasing of volume, speed, quality and efficiency of information transfer.

The Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industry shows huge interest in accepting of new technologies in the sphere of nD visualization, data analysis, information sharing, communications and collaboration. Following this way it is possible to improve communication, increase client satisfaction, reduce coordination errors in construction, provide a greater understanding between project participants, create fewer ambiguities and discrepancies in documentation and generally increase awareness and recognition of issues and requirements by all project participants. The main destination of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is providing construction stakeholders with information and analytical tools for the best control.

It is essential that each team member receives the right documents at the right time such as the latest version of drawings, specifications requirements among others. ICT softwares are used at this stage to:

• Improve efficiency of work
• reduce the risk of errors and rework by ensuring that everyone in the project team is working with the most current drawings and other documents;  
• save time in the query (request for information, RFI) and approval process, by allowing the design team to mark up and comment on drawings online;
• eliminate the risk of losing important files, by maintaining all current and past versions in one central location;
• improve team communication by enabling team members to raise and respond to queries in a structured way;  
• maintain a complete log of all communications for tracking purposes (audit trail facility);  provide clients and other participants with a view of the project as it is built;
• as some software have incorporated virtual reality models to denote the status of a project at any point in time (a snap shot view of a project);
• Provide a collaborative environment whereby the diverse participants can perform online collaboration via the web.  
• The real exchange of information takes place via other, informal channels, where other forms of information and communication technology such as e-mail, SMS messaging and mobile telephones, which enable direct contacts between project 25 members in network-like cooperation.

The construction industry is one of the least automated industries that feature manual-intensive labor as a primary source of productivity. Whether it’s new commercial construction, renovation or demolition, robots don’t yet play a significant role in any step of a building’s lifecycle. There are several new robots under development and in the early stages of deployment that could change this, however. As a highly unautomated industry, construction is poised for a robot revolution.

Construction Robots Only Now Realizing Commercial Potential
It may seem odd that the construction industry utilizes so few robots, but there’s a good reason for this: construction tasks are notoriously difficult to automate. The construction worksite is the primary obstacle to robotic automation.
Robots excel at repetitive tasks in a controlled environment. Construction sites could not be more opposite. Robots need to be able to adapt to real-time variability in their environment with little to no reprogramming in order to be profitable and productive. This is difficult for robots to do, but a few different construction robots are taking on these historically challenging tasks.

Types of Construction Robots
There are a few different types of construction robots that are poised to break into the construction market at a mass scale. First is a 3D-printing robot that can build large buildings on demand. A mobile robotic arm controls a 3D-printer, and with a set of preprogrammed instructions, this system 3D prints an entire structurally-safe building.
This technology is also beginning to be used for building bridges, with the first ever 3D printed bridge recently being built in the Netherlands. This combination of 3D printing and industrial robots is some of the most promising automation technology in the construction industry.

There are also construction robots for brick-laying and masonry, and even robots that lay an entire street at one time. These types of robots dramatically improve the speed and quality of construction work.
Demolition robots are another type of construction robot that’s about to break into mainstream applications. While they’re slower than demolition crews, they’re far safer and cheaper when it comes to demolishing concrete and structural components of a building at the end of its lifecycle.

There are several other types of construction robots, such as remote controlled or autonomous vehicles, but the few mentioned above are the most prepared to function in a current construction site and may be the most impactful.
As a highly unautomated industry, construction robots will have a major impact on the construction industry. As construction companies look to automate more and more tasks for the sake of efficiency and productivity, demand for construction robots will grow steadily.

The Advantages of Robotics in Construction

Adding robots to the mix on any construction job site may seem out of place, given the countless hazards that lurk on nearly all projects. However, giving machines the ability to function on their own, without the need for human interaction, actually has the potential to improve safety for all workers. Robotics in construction is currently being used for self-operating machinery, including bulldozers, excavators, and cranes, but the implications for such technology are far-reaching. When construction workers are taken out of the role of completing the mundane tasks now managed by robots, they can use their time to do more skilled work. This bolsters efficiencies and timeline management for most construction job sites.

In addition to autonomously completing tasks, robotics in construction may also influence the level of safety construction workers experience. Ekso Bionics, another California-based technology firm, has been developing wearable robotics for construction industry professionals for the past few years. Enhancements like exoskeletons that help improve mobility for contractors and robotic arms to reduce the impact of repetitive tasks on the job are being used at many job sites currently. These additions to construction projects pave the way for a safer job site, increased productivity, and a reduction in the time it takes to complete a job. The combination of the benefits robotics is adding to the industry ultimately lead to lower operations costs, from surety bond pricing to insurance expenses.

What it Means for Construction Workers

Adding technology like robotics to the construction industry has been met with some hesitation, mostly from industry professionals who have spent countless hours to get licensed and bonded, create and nurture professional relationships, and stay up to date on safety and building standards. However, technology and construction industry experts agree that while the trends moving toward digitization of the field has the potential to take away some low-level positions, it will be several years before robotics in construction is the norm. Instead, a slow and steady introduction of new technology in the industry is more likely.

Construction workers who are fearful of tech-infused solutions taking away jobs should rest assured that human skill will not be replaced by automated machines. Several tasks cannot be completed accurately or more efficiently by a robot, and project management is not a role that can be replaced by technology. The benefits robotics brings to the construction industry are evolving every day while being embraced on a wider scale, but construction workers are not out of a job because of it.

The huge development in the information technology has provided the possibilities for much faster and more efficient access to survey data, allowing their remote, nearly real-time management, processing and visualisation. The proposed geographic information system (GIS) is able to integrate many different types of survey data, especially those acquired by various acoustic sensors. It also supports instantaneous 2D and 3D visualisation in the form of thematic layers that can be overlaid. The set of geoprocessing and spatial analysis methods can be used in order to retrieve relevant information and analysis results.

About Geographic Information Systems

Tailoring solutions to each client and to each project, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be implemented on a number of software platforms for use in all sectors, including municipal, provincial and governments, urban development, forestry and emergency response, as well as for linear projects such as pipelines, fibre-optics and power transmission.

The solutions of a GIS platform

• Needs Analysis and Assessment
• Dataset Creation, Manipulation and Implementation
• Data/GIS Modeling
• GIS Analysis and Reporting
• Data Collection, Input and Conversion
• 3D Modeling
• Digital Mapping
• Database Design
• Cartographic Layout and Design
• Printing and Production
• Website Design and Maintenance
• Application Development

Information integrity that mitigates risk

The quality and integrity of project information is of paramount concern. A successful outcome for critical business decisions relies on an inherent trust in the integrity and accuracy of the underlying engineering information that those decisions are based upon. GIS applies rigorous standards and controls to all of the information that goes into project.

The web GIS portal provides a single interface where stakeholders can go to obtain up to date information on engineering, design/build and overall project status. Access to the portal and the different information is controlled by usernames and passwords. These portals are easy to use, requiring no technical GIS knowledge and run on any standard web browser. All project staff, senior executives and even the public can use the portal for knowledge gathering and/or to support decision making.  Decreasing and in some cases eliminating the time it takes to find information and make decisions creates value by enabling faster execution of project deliverables.

Collaboration that strengthens communication and ads value

GIS is a conglomerate platform. It is a technology that provides a mechanism where all of the diverse disciplines on engineering projects can interact. The web GIS portals provide a single access point where all project stakeholders can quickly understand everything that is going on, regardless of their individual role within the larger project. GIS facilitates true teamwork by providing a single interactive space where all disciplines and stakeholders can see the full picture.

The ability to move forward on any project relies on being able to effectively communicate with decision makers on the past, current and future state. GIS has advanced tools for analysing information, then presenting and visualizing different scenarios.

GIS for Electric Utilities & Smart Grids

The smart grid is all about situation awareness and effective anticipation of and response to events that might disrupt the performance of the power grid. Since spatial data underlies everything an electric utility does, GIS is the only foundational view that can potentially link every operational activity of an electric utility including design and construction, asset management, workforce management, and outage management as well as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), distribution management systems (DMSs), renewable, and strategy planning.