Quality Management

Since the establishment of a GIS System for a new organization is a very comprehensive and heterogeneous project, covering a wide range of tasks, implementation of adequate quality management mechanisms is crucial for the overall project success. Our experts help you to design and develop quality control mechanisms right from project start, covering a wide range of measures:

• Standards: In order to ensure high quality standards, our consultants abide to different standards in the sphere of GIS. ISO 19113 standard on geographic data quality principles, ISO 19114 standard on quality evaluation procedures and ISO 19115 standard on metadata are followed and documented whenever appropriate. Apart from these ISO norms, we are committed to open and interoperability standards of the Open GIS Consortium (OGC).

• Data: The quality of the data already available at the client, as well as the data collected from other sources and from the field work, depends on several quality components, which are, according to ISO 19113 norm, the positional accuracy (assessment of the accuracy of the positions of spatial objects in both horizontal and vertical positions), attribute accuracy (assessment of the accuracy of the identification of entities and assignment of attribute values in the dataset), consistency (explanation of the fidelity of the relationships in the dataset), and completeness. All these quality components are carefully checked by our consultants through regular sample inspections, as well as automated testing routines within the GIS.

• Metadata: All data collected, processed and imported into the geodatabase are documented according to ISO 19115 metadata standards. A proper metadata documentation is crucial for the client staff to continue working and expanding the database after completion of the project.

• Applications: We base our applications development process on the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) standards. Our consultants follow the SOA Maturity Model during the applications development process in order to provide a framework for discussion between IT and business users about the applicability and benefits of SOA in an organization. They prepare template test reports including test cases that validate project deliverables, their completeness, functionality, integration and compliance to project specification. Systems and applications will extensively be tested with real data once they are operational.

• Documents and Reports: Any report to be submitted to the Client will be proof-read by at least one team member from our Consultant that was not involved in writing up the actual report. This ensures that all reports are of highest standards, both with respect to their contents and formalities.

• Validation and Acceptance of Deliverables: Our consultants would help the client in the validation and approval of all final deliverables, such as hardware installations, software installations, applications, geodatabases, or reports. They would particularly look at whether they comply with highest professional standards.

• Regular Quality Reporting to the Client: Our consultants meet regularly with the Client reporting about progress and the quality of all deliverables, according to ISO 19114 reporting and evaluation standards (=quality evaluation report).

• Systems Security: Our quality management approach gives a particular attention to risks relevant to data and systems security. We eagerly identify such risks very well in advance and keep them in mind throughout the project implementation lifecycle. We strive for building an information security system that prevents data losses, protects data confidentiality and prevents unauthorized individuals from inside or outside the organization from entering the system and retrieving data. Our consultants ensure that IT Security Policy is developed by the contractor well in advance and that it is followed throughout the project implementation phases. We use our well-established systems security checks mechanisms to ensure that data and systems are safe and secure.

Stategic Planing

The aim of the strategic planning services is to accompany our customers towards the introduction and integration of GIS and ERP/FIS in their overall infrastructure. This is to be conducted through several consulting tasks from requirements analysis and user needs assessment to system design and development of logical workflows.

The result of this process is strategic planning document, which could also also include an implementation roadmap and technical tender documents.

Projects are conducted through a network of competence teams according to the customer requirements. In a highly diverging market with a confusing range of services and high investment risks, these 'panels of experts' are considered as pilots for your IT project.

In search of productive, low-cost and future-oriented solutions, each competence team contributes to the experts’ pool by adding individual knowledge and experience. In this way we systematically use synergy effects of highly specialized experts to create customized applications.

Tendering procedure assistence

If you are planning a tender for the introduction or enhancement of geographic information systems in your organization, then talk to us!

Based on a strategic and conceptual planning, we design for our clients the technical specifications for tendering their GIS projects. We ensure that the potential system is properly sized for your needs, that requirements are described in a very clear and accurate way, that technology to be used is up-to-date and that the evaluation criteria are enough to come up with the right contractor for your GIS implementation. We may also help you by the evaluation of proposals and the design of evaluation matrices for the proper selection of the right contractor.

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