Utility and communications companies are awash in disparate technologies – and disconnected enterprise information.
With different applications and business systems for everything from network management to customer services, the ability for utility and communication staff from all roles to access valuable location-based engineering and operational data and capabilities in real-time is burdensome at best. The same could be said for transforming that information into insightful decisions that improve business processes and capabilities. However, it hasn’t been for a lack of trying.
Using variants of ETL (extract, transform, load) to move network data from one department or system to another has been common practice in the industry for years. While simple to implement, copying rather than sharing data introduces inconsistencies, errors, and latency in records. Linking disparate systems with custom point-to-point integrations avoids the problems of disconnected and fragmented data and processes, but the time and cost involved in developing and maintaining these interfaces has limited their use to the most critical pairings of systems and workflows.
But times are changing. Technology, markets, competition, and even customers are changing. For network operators, the need to exploit network data more extensively and efficiently across the enterprise has never been greater.
Today, Hexagon Safety & Infrastructure is announcing the launch of Intergraph NetWorks – a flexible software suite that provides utilities and communications companies with secure, real-time access to location-based engineering and operational data and capabilities across the enterprise. Intergraph NetWorks helps operators unlock business value in existing geospatial investments; enhance the reach, quality and currency of enterprise information; and improve business processes and capabilities.
By leveraging web services to simplify the development and maintenance of interfaces, integrations, and task-oriented portal and mobile applications, Intergraph NetWorks connects the enterprise to the network models and business rules established by Intergraph G/Technology, making this information available and usable wherever needed – by planners, call center staff, operations center personnel, field crews and even customers.
Intergraph NetWorks establishes a foundation of standards-based web services that enable the widest range of users and software to access, visualize, update and add network data. It offers far greater flexibility and choice than web mapping and mobile GIS tools in how data and functionality are accessed and deployed and provides a range of critical enterprise capabilities out-of-the-box. By connecting users across the enterprise with the network model and supporting new applications, Intergraph NetWorks increases the value of network data, while reducing costs across the board.
For more than a year, we have worked closely with Intergraph G/Technology customers to research, develop, test, and deploy a solution that leverages network model via web services. Intergraph NetWorks is a result of that collaboration. With Intergraph NetWorks, we have created a foundation for our customers to share network data, deploy task-specific apps, and truly connect their enterprise. For more information on Intergraph Networks, please visit our new product page.
