Towards monitoring and managing the production of cadastral information in land information infrastructures using supply chain mapping and the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model

Coping with rapid urbanisation and the impacts of climate change requires effective land management. Quality land information is essential for this. A land information infrastructure is a collaborative and coordinated initiative aimed at providing land information from different organisations, such as municipalities, government departments and private companies, to diverse user communities. A land information infrastructure is complex, spanning information streams through many organisations and technical systems, and presenting challenges for managing and monitoring the production of land information. In the manufacturing field, a supply chain refers to the stream of activities from the initial source to the delivery of end products to customers, and supply chain management is directed at optimising the creation of the products of such a chain. The Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model is widely used for analysing supply chain processes in order to quantify and improve product and service delivery, and it has also been applied to geographical information supply chains. In this study, the SCOR model is applied to the supply chain processes in a South African case study of a land information infrastructure focusing on the production of cadastral information products. The supply chain comprises a land developer, a land surveying firm, the Surveyor General’s and Deeds Offices, a geospatial data vendor and the end customer. This supply chain is mapped and analysed using supply chain mapping and the SCOR model, and based on this, the complexity of the land information infrastructure is revealed. The study shows that supply chain management and the SCOR model can be used to analyse, monitor and manage the production processes of land information within a land information infrastructure.