Utility GIS Needs Assessments

GIS Needs Assessments

Let Sentinel USA take a systematic look at how GIS can cater to the needs of your organization and to help define the spatial data needed to enhance your existing work processes. Sentinel USA has been providing GIS Needs Assessments for organizations for over a decade.

A GIS Needs Assessment is the evaluation of existing systems and their capabilities to perform future processing needs using GIS. Needs Assessments document the day to day needs of the various departments among the organization and identifies opportunities to increase the availability of GIS information. Additionally, it includes a review of IT structure and security needs to ensure that an enterprise-wide GIS will work effectively with other software and hardware tools.

The focus of these assessments are to collect and review information resources for the GIS system development. The information is useful in identifying various departmental tasks which will form the basis of the GIS application development and functionality. Existing geographic information (spreadsheets, forms, soft copy maps, paper maps, etc.), data flow and the process amid the various groups in the organization are important in identifying the data availability and data acquisition needed for the GIS database, which will eventually formulate the data maintenance and data operability procedures.

"Our proprietary assessment applications and procedural processes provides a requirements analysis and implementation framework for enhancing geospatial technology activities beneficial to the company on a global scale"

Our clients seek to develop geographic information system (GIS) capabilities to promote current and future administrative and planning initiatives and integrate these more effectively with the industry’s evolving geospatial services and data resources.

This systematic study approach provides a strategy to address these objectives in order to move organizations toward more effective and integrated utilization of geospatial technology.

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DEFINING YOUR GIS NEEDS THROUGH ANALYSIS

In pursuit of these high level objectives, these assessments are formulated by Sentinel USA to achieve the following results:

Increase the utilization of geospatial data and technical tools in areas where GIS provides benefits through increased efficiency, cost avoidance, or operational service enhancement

Evaluate the content, accuracy and adequacy of existing data sets and maps across in-house departments and outside resources

Identify data needs in relation to work function requirements

Determine data set and mapping requirements for implementation in GIS

Establish how potential users will use the GIS

Identify potential GIS applications for each department

Identify staff training issues related to implementation

Identify areas for potential process improvements and data sharing

Sentinel USA provides organizations with a variety of GIS related services, from building GIS platforms, optimizing existing GIS applications, or custom programming. In all cases, Sentinel adheres to an “any-to-any” philosophy. By not being tied to any particular format or platform, we have the flexibility to work with and/or deliver solutions to meet our clients requirements.

Whether operating as the mapping department of a One Call Center, Utility Company or providing HCA compliance services, Sentinel has developed unique expertise in building unified seamless land bases and point of interest data sets for large areas or a given clients area of interest,

Assisting O&G clients in compliance with PHMSA’s HCA (High Consequence Area) and DIMP regulations is perhaps the most complex of Sentinel’s offerings. In short, all pipeline operators must notify PHMSA where their pipelines pass under or close by sensitive areas (population or environmental) and have stringent integrity management practices for those areas. This is a challenge for most operators. By fine tuning the process, Sentinel protects utility infrastructure and saves its clients valuable time, resources and money.