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Client: Central Highlands Water

Central Highlands Water (CHW) is a regional urban water corporation based in Ballarat, Victoria which provides water and wastewater services to a population of approximately 125,000 from catchment to tap. They have had GIS for over 20 years with the latest suite of GIS products from ESRI being implemented in 2004. 

Part of CHW’s corporate GIS software is an intranet mapping application that provides its staff with spatial data they need on a daily basis. CHW staff rely on the mapping application to respond to customer enquiries and for planning their inspections. The mapping application is integrated with the asset management system and so serves as the central point for many day to day business transactions. This application has become an integral part of CHW’s IT infrastructure.

CHW currently uses EView software to provide the corporate intranet mapping application. Development of this product ceased in 2008 so they are looking for an appropriate replacement for their current and future needs. With the growing number of mapping solutions available, both from established vendors and Open Source, CHW decided to use the opportunity to explore the alternatives. Spatial Vision was tasked with assisting CHW to investigate the potential products that could replace EView and service the authority’s future requirements.

To undertake the project, Spatial Vision firstly identified and documented CHW’s future requirements for an intranet mapping application. The requirements were described by functional and non-functional criteria and rated according to their priority. Spatial Vision then undertook a comparative assessment of CHW’s requirements against three of the industry leading products.

The resulting report documented CHW’s intranet mapping requirements and determined how well of the products would meet the authority’s needs. The report did not provide a recommendation of which product should be implemented but a comparison of these products from which CHW can decide on its preferred product or which product it should investigate further.

Demonstrated Capabilities

• Ability to understand and document a client’s requirements
• Technical expertise in the elements of web mapping applications
• Technical expertise in image server software
• Understanding of current trends and technologies in web applications
• Ability to evaluate products and technology and provided recommendations based on solid research and clear understanding of requirements

Resources

• Ishara Kotiah was the project manager and main software reviewer.
• Yi Lik Tsang assisted with product assessments.
• Lucy Minato worked with Central Highlands Water at the start of the project to define their functional and non-functional assessment criteria.