Data interoperability is at the heart of managing a large construction project. Coordinating activities between teams of contractors and suppliers runs on spatial data. When that data can't flow freely between systems, projects pay the price. From planning through demobilization, large construction projects generate a massive volume of spatial data. During planning, designers, estimators, and vendors iteratively develop site layouts and project schedules. Once construction starts, field teams use high-precision GPS and superintendents track the location of key assets in real time. Regular drone flights capture detailed imagery and terrain data to give a bird's eye view of the site. After demobilization, as-builts are recorded and routine maintenance begins.
When Every Team Speaks a Different Data Language
With so many different teams, vendors, and systems involved, data management can quickly become fragmented with silos and quality concerns. Designers may find a CAD tool perfect for precisely placing infrastructure and calculating exact volumes of cut and fill. Meanwhile, a less technically savvy vendor may only work in KMLs. As a result, project staff lose significant time translating data across different formats and applications, time that could be spent on higher value work.
Enterprise GIS is the right place to standardize and centralize all of this spatial data. It can visualize different formats, support design and construction workflows from a single platform, and ensure data is backed up and retained throughout the project lifecycle.
Custom Interoperability Tools That Do the Heavy Lifting
As experts in GIS, Blue Raster goes a step further and develops custom tools to streamline data ingestion into Enterprise GIS, enabling all project data to flow into a single system for analysis and dissemination.
Our team recently developed custom data interoperability tools to help a large construction firm coordinate design tasks between multiple vendors and divisions. Many of their vendors create detailed designs using KMLs, sometimes generating thousands of individual features with data encoded in the feature hierarchy, the symbology, and custom HTML tables.
With each design iteration, estimators spent hours ingesting the files to preserve the information and integrate the latest updates into the project design. Staff then had to export the latest complete design back to KMZ so each vendor could work on the next design iteration. The firm needed a solution to optimize efficiency while ensuring everyone was working with the most recent information.
One System, Minutes Instead of Hours
Using the tools Blue Raster developed, their team can now import and export data in and out of their Enterprise GIS in minutes while preserving all information and the original symbology. Our solution streamlined essential data management tasks in GIS, saving their team significant time and money. As a result, staff can easily access the data they need to plan and monitor construction activities while continuously optimizing their designs.