Enterprise spatial data deployment strategies in a global engineering environment

Abstract

This paper discusses the challenges faced by large engineering firms in organizing and analyzing vast amounts of diverse geospatial data to support complex engineering projects worldwide. For Bechtel, the implementation of an Enterprise GIS has greatly facilitated spatial data sharing and utilization, but has required much forethought and planning in the architectural design, standards and tools required to deploy and maintain such information in a global work environment. With the GIS technical discipline and spatial data being a relatively new centralized resource within the company, and given the great variety of CAD, GIS and other data sources and formats that are involved in supporting Bechtel projects in its five Global Business Units (GBUs), the issues of data interoperability, data model standardization, reliability, security, and scalability continue to be central to the implementation and deployment strategies being adopted for the company.