The Solution
In February 2003 OSNI awarded a contract to ESRI and Tadpole Cartesia to develop the Mapping Information Database And Surveying (“MIDAS”) map production system. In order to ensure continuity of service to OSNI customers (both external and internal) the system was implemented in the following stages:
- Stage 1
- Development and implementation of an operational data store (hardware, spatial database and database management software) capable of holding key topographic and other reference data for Northern Ireland (vector, raster, height and dtm).
- Stage 2
- Migration of OSNI Large Scale digital topographic data (graphic, address, photography and textual data e.g. addresses, vegetation, etc.) to the data store.
- Stage 3
- Development and implementation of map update system (software and hardware) including interfaces to OSNI’s existing photogrammetric system as well as EDM and GPS field survey devices.
- Stage 4
- Development and implementation of link to the Pointer address database to enable updating and maintenance of OSNI-specific address information within Pointer by the map update system. Integration of system to select, view and print photographic images held within the data store.
In parallel to the technological aspect to this migration it was important to analyse the existing business processes within the OSNI map production unit in order to remove any limitations imposed by the current systems. To this end a business process review was carried out, taking into account existing processes as well as OSNI’s long term objectives. The purpose of the BPR was to alleviate any existing bottlenecks in the end-to-end processes, refocus the flowlines, and ensure that OSNI achieved the maximum possible benefits to production throughput.
