Automated Development Applications within a Water Utility
Charles Moscato(Presenter)
Spatial Information Manager - Yarra Valley Water
Executive Summary
Yarra Valley Water has introduced a new web based system called easyACCESS, which allows its customers the ability to submit development applications on-line or to purchase information products. The system spatially interrogates both YVW’s Property and Asset systems to obtain the relevant information which is applied to set business rules to automatically completean application without staff involvement.
Keywords:
Spatial, information, interrogation, automation
Yarra Valley Water – easyACCESS – Automated GIS interrogation.
Yarra Valley Water receives over twenty thousand development applications per annum. Previously these applications required trained staff to manually inspect asset data from which each responsewas generated.The expected turnaround time for the submitted applications ranged from days up to several weekswas greater than 2 weeks. In 2013, Yarra Valley Water introduced a new web based portal called easyACCESS to automatically generate responses for over 75% of the submitted applications, and reduced their turn-around times down to minutes.
The true beauty of this new system is what occurs behind the scenes, whereby it’s automatically interrogating YVW’s property and asset data from the GIS and utilises this information to calculate responses to the customer application. An automated business rule engine stores all the relevant clauses associated to each application,and hence with the information collatedapplications can now be processed automatically. This automation ensures that all applications are processed against the same business rules, and only difficult or abstract applications are required to be manually reviewed by staff, providing greater accuracy and vastly improved turn-around times. Where exceptions are identified within the application, the system generates an automatedfollow-up request to YVW staff. This new technology and process have enabled us to have more external customers directly accessing the system and processing applications on line. This is a win for customers who can drive their own timelines and a win for YVW knowing that quality, consistent information is produced.
This unique presentation provides a summary of the new ways YVW’s GIS is automatically interrogated to process applications with no user intervention. However it highlights the need to ensure that the underlying data is accurate / fit for purpose for the applications being produced.
Bio:
Charles has been the GIS Manager at Yarra Valley Water since 2010, and has over 20 years’ experience within the spatial industry. He has a strong consulting background to both government and private industries and holds a Bachelor of Land Information from RMIT. Having dealt with a large variety of business’s providing GIS services covering GIS implementation, GIS analysis, product development, project management and conducting corporate GIS training, he has a keen interest in the future directions within the Spatial Industry particularly around spatial automation.