Leveraging your business geography

An economy can be defined as a system for transforming Earth’s resources into useful products that are distributed to humans for consumption. In that simple definition reside many key concepts: first, that somewhere there are resources that will be collected; second, that the resources will be transported from their source to a processing plant; third, that those resources will be processed into products; and fourth, that the products will be distributed from the plant to buyers for consumption. This can be described as a ‘business geography’ composed of activities and spatial objects that are moved, transformed and transported to consumers.

What if you could put your entire business geography on a map? Imagine a single map that describes your resources, the routes the materials take to processing, the routes that your products follow to markets and the location of consumers. It could provide the story of your business in a single view.

Today’s spatial information management (SIM) technologies such as geographic information systems (GIS), computer-aided design (CAD), global positioning systems (GPS), radio-frequency identification (RFID), wireless LAN, cellular and sensor-based technology can provide your business systems with rich spatial content. These technologies can be leveraged together with your existing business IT investments to produce a more complete view of your business. Individual business processes that already leverage hardware, applications, data and network resources can now add spatial capabilities.

Spatial information may consist of aerial/satellite imagery, map features, web map services, location-based sensors and three-dimensional CAD models of facilities and infrastructure. These models combined with landscape and the time dimension can provide a powerful context for understanding planning, construction, operations and maintenance activities as they occur (Figure 1).

The first development step is to establish a standards-based, enterprise services-oriented architecture (SOA). An enterprise SOA-based approach ensures agility and flexibility as business requirements change, new stakeholders emerge and as IT systems evolve over time. The SOA provides standards-based interface definitions for each software component.
Central to developing a business geography is the common spatial database. The common spatial database is standards-based and is used to store all business-related spatial data to include buildings, pipelines, transmission lines, environmental constraints, etc.

SIM capabilities are increasingly provided by modular applets served through a portal interface. Each of these applets are defined in the enterprise SOA. This approach increases functionality reuse and reduces IT total cost of ownership.

Field data update activities are critical to the success of many business operations. For instance, on a power corridor development project, the field location of pipelines, junctions and environmental constraints like wetlands are critical to the project success. Mobile SIM applications can be developed for devices as lightweight as a cellular telephone.

Benefits of a business geography

The foremost benefit of a business geography is the increased situational awareness it provides for business leaders. During each phase of a business activity, spatial visualization provides an effective and efficient method for conflict detection and coordination between activity staff. For instance, a logistics lead can quickly visualize that an area of access road construction will conflict with the relocation of a underground power main – both tasks are scheduled to occur simultaneously in the same area.

Business geography solutions also provide an IT framework that protects information assets and enables progressive data enrichment throughout the business lifecycle. The result is a robust, historical spatial record of business activities, and high quality information to support operations and maintenance, asset valuation and legal compliance.

In the boardroom, the right decisions are made when corporate leaders have the greatest understanding of the challenges they face. The tools that business uses to illuminate problems and find answers should be extended to include spatial information and technologies. Imagine a single map that describes your business geography. It could provide the story of your business in a single view.