The concept of Transitional GIS is a new but necessary part of the evolution of a CAD">CAD based mapping system moving towards a GIS based mapping system.

As today's companies try and compete in a market that is constantly changing, the visionaries behind each of these companies are trying to look forward into how they can make their company do more with less.  How they can satisfy more and more government regulations, yet still use less and less manpower.  How to continue to grow into new markets, yet maintain current staffing levels.  How to eliminate redundancy within different departments and different parts of the organization.  The answer has been GIS.

GIS, for many years has been the Holy Grail sought by so many companies looking to eliminate the redundancy and errors of multiple sources of data.  The thought being let the GIS repository manage all data once within the enterprise.  This has had many stumbling blocks over the year, but each problem has seen resolution over the past few years.

The DBMS software has grown more and more powerful, enabling them to serve up gigabytes, even terabytes of information.  The Hardware has grown more powerful, while at the same time becoming more and more economical.  Standards within the GIS community are being implemented to allow the sharing of Spatial data.  Several GIS companies are now leading the way with front end applications that sit on top of the standard DBMS systems.

ESRI, Autodesk, Intergraph and Bentley each have multiple products for implementing various size GIS projects on both the construction project level and/or on the Enterprise level.

Image compression (MrSid) is now working on practical levels that allow common servers to store image data that once had to be held on many, many servers.

Many new GIS consulting firms have over the years developed the specialized know-how necessary for developing and implementing GIS solution.

Many new GIS service companies have sprouted up to handle data conversions.

The industry seems primed for an explosion of growth.  So why are so many companies hesitating on a full-blown implementation?  Several reasons:  

1.    First, the technology is new, i.e. unknown, which causes an uneasiness to putting so many company eggs in one basket at a significant cost.  

2.    Second, manpower.  Where does a company find enough GIS people to handle their fast-track construction projects?  

3.    Third, Data conversion.  How does a company handle the conversion of the existing data warehouse (typically CAD files) while at the same time handle the conversion of new project files (again CAD files) being constantly added to the existing data warehouse?

The answer becomes simple: Transitional GIS.

First, alleviate the uneasiness by not pulling the plug overnight on existing departments and technologies, while plugging in those new untested technologies.  Not to be misunderstood, we believe GIS is the solution, but coming from a production background, any interruptions in the progress of new construction affects the bottom line and is therefore to be avoided at all costs.  So start by looking at existing processes to determine how to avoid possible interruptions in workflow.  

Survey acquires data and passes it to Engineering/Design.  

Engineering/Design creates CAD files as a deliverable to government permitting agencies, as well as construction. 

Construction builds the project, then as-builts the construction documents (DWG's) which are then passed to Operations and Maintenance.

Operations and Maintenance then stores the documents for retrieval when necessary for upgrades or modification.  They then re-input the minimal amount of data (because of time and cost) from the documents to update the enterprise GIS system.

Now here is Blue Sky Development's new process:

Survey acquires data and passes it to Engineering/Design.  

Engineering/Design creates CAD files as a deliverable to government permitting agencies, as well as construction, yet extracts the GIS data (using the AlignDB application) to an external GIS project database.

Construction builds the project, then as-builts the construction documents which are then passed along with the external GIS project database to Operations and Maintenance.

Operations and Maintenance then stores the documents for retrieval when necessary for upgrades or modification.  They then upload the GIS project database into the enterprise GIS system.

What are the benefits:

The users still get all the benefits of an Enterprise GIS solution.

They also get to utilize an existing pool of skilled CAD people while introducing them to the GIS world.

And, the engineering design group has a very small learning curve (only the AlignDB application) while maintaining the same quick turn-around that is required of construction projects.

And, there is minimal if any data translation required to get the maximum amount of data into your new enterprise GIS solution.  This reduces the largest portion (data translation) of the cost associated with a new GIS solution, which in turn speeds up that implementation.

And, the Operations and Maintenance groups can also use the same application (AlignDB) to extract the data from existing documents, which means that the existing pile of CAD files is getting translated and all new project CAD files have already been translated when they arrive.

All of these benefits translate into getting an Enterprise GIS system with more data than anticipated, at less cost, with less interruption of current workflow.  In fact, the AlignDB program should actually shorten the design time and cost of the Engineering design process, while leveraging the strengths and known reliability of those same processes.

Everyone wins with Transitional GIS.