Autodesk spatial deal with Vic water authority

Stan Beer
Friday, 20 January 2006 10:24

IT Industry - Deals

Design and manufacturing software company, Autodesk, has won a deal with Victoria-based Wannon Region Water Authority to provide spatial solutions for a major data consolidation project.

Open Spatial, Autodesk’s Australian reseller for water and wastewater utilities will deliver and integrate the solutions for Wannon Water. 

Wannon Water provides water and wastewater services to 37,000 customers, in 34 towns and urban localities in South West Victoria.

A critical facet of the project is to standardise and consolidate Wannon Water’s existing GIS capabilities developed from its three previous organisations, into one platform. 

Wannon Water selected the Munsys Water and Wastewater spatial management applications based on Autodesk Map 3D and enlighten based on Autodesk MapGuide.  Developed by Open Spatial, these location-based applications have proven popular with Australia’s risk-averse water authorities for their ability to improve data quality, accuracy and integrity, while ensuring remote availability,

Jamie Crowe, Wannon Water’s Asset Manager, Hamilton zone and Convenor, GIS working group, said, “The Autodesk-based solutions, from Open Spatial, were chosen for their simplicity of use and unique focus on the Australian water and wastewater industry.

“The Munsys and enlighten solutions will provide a consistent approach throughout our new organisation with easy-to-use software that will deliver an integrated, location-based view of our spatial and corporate databases with a structured data maintenance platform.  The open structure of the Oracle spatial database at the heart of the system provides the basis for the integration with our existing customer and asset management databases.

“Of particular interest to Wannon Water was to review and adjust the workflow processes to ensure efficient and cost effective data maintenance, while achieving higher data quality than currently exists.  The Open Spatial solution had proven to achieve these aims at similar authorities around Australia,” Crowe said.

Commenting on the announcement, André Pravaz, Autodesk’s South Asia Pacific Vice President, said, “Wannon Water will realise significant benefits through the introduction of location-based interfaces into its key business systems.  Together, Open Spatial, Autodesk and Oracle have proven to deliver unrivalled results to Australian water authorities, streamlining their operations and greatly reducing their costs.”

The Open Spatial solution provides a single location-based user interface into an organisation’s many corporate applications to minimise data redundancies and eliminate data duplication experienced with traditional GIS implementations.

At the centre of the solution is the spatial functionality of the Oracle database.  Oracle has created opportunities for companies, like Open Spatial, to focus on niche markets and build business solutions that deliver fast returns on investment.

Oracle claims that between 80% and 90% of their typical GIS user needs can be delivered directly from the database.

Anthony Jahshan Managing Director of Open Spatial Australia, said, “We’re very pleased to be working closely with Wannon Water.  As one of Australia’s more progressive authorities they are keen to adopt a spatial solution that delivers higher levels of accuracy and precision while reducing data redundancy and eliminating data duplication to deliver new levels of productivity.”