Standardising and simplifying systems and data management - Esri UK Welsh Conference 2025

Editor's Notes

• #1 Next we have another joint session starting with a presentation by Kieran Bourke from Wales and West Utilities telling us about their GIS transformation journey and how they've leveraged ArcGIS Enterprise to meet evolving business needs,  followed by a technical demo by Esri UK colleagues Alasdair and Balqis exloring some of the easy ways in which ArcGIS can be connected with other data systems to provide powerful insight. So firstly I'd like to introduce you to Kieran Bourke from Wales and West Utilities.  Thank you Kieran. 
• #2 Welcome, I’m Kieran Bourke GIS specialist and Solution Architect at Wales and West Utilities. I’m here today to share with you the Wales and West’s GIS journey. This project took approximately 6 yrs to complete and should be considered as no small undertaking, you’ll be please to know that I won’t be regaling you with a full breakdown. This is a brief showcase on how your can move from a 20yr old technology set to something utilising ESRI’s latest offerings. Moving on let's enlighten you regarding who Wales and West Utilities are and what we do…..
• #3 Operates the gas distribution network across Wales and the Southwest of England. We do not sell gas, just transport it. The network consist of 35000km gas pipes. Maintain supply to 7.5 million people. We operate the gas emergency service for our region, providing round to clock provision respond to gas emergencies, to ensure public safety. We actively invest in replacing the older metallic gas mains with polyethylene (plastic ones). Also, we are actively working to incorporate greener gases (biomethane/hydrogen) into the network, to help the UK meet its net-zero emissions targets. Now let's talk about how we began our GIS journey 20yrs ago……
• #4 I came to the gas industry many years ago when lightboxes were still being used to digitise maps. When Wales & West Utilities was founded in 2005 ESRI’s GIS technology was identified as a core business system replacing the British Gas developed Gas Maps environment. Moving from analogue to digital capture. We create a bespoke, advanced GIS platform. Built with Esri’s GIS ArcMap and ArcFM technology, the resulting solution was ground-breaking. It succeeded in improving the availability and management of spatial data, leading to the creation of new streamlined business processes introducing connectivity with other core environments. The key point here we achieved our ambitions, however there were some significant challenges ahead that we would need to address…..
• #5 Two decades later, the same GIS system was still in constant use. A platform that went end of life December 31, 2013. The environment was so heavily customised it bared little resemblance to ArcMap which it was based on. We had lost the ability to ingest new external data sources Ordnance Survey geography updates had fallen to the wayside, ( which took days to process one tile). We were introducing additional issues around data management/data versioning negatively encouraging silo behaviors. In essence the data we were maintaining was becoming out of sync with the rest of the business. As part of this we had to introduce large-scale data cleansing activities to manage the issue. When we embarked on this project there were 8 other mapping systems in use across the business. Suffered a loss of user confidence in the core technology. Ultimately it was clear a change was needed to address these challenges. So where did we go from here…..
• #6 Upgrading - a straight conversion to the latest release was simply too costly. Customisation doesn’t go away unless you design it out. Technology was now available for us to consider a different approach; this would require a complete rethink of how we processed and managed our spatial data. And allow access to Esri’s latest and most advanced GIS technology. We needed to address data inconsistences using a one source approach for all data. Due to our experience of legacy customisation, we decided to enforce the edict of no custom code, which translated to no addition or alteration to core products in the development. Had a requirement to reduce desktop clients. So where did that leave us, we knew what needed to change and were in a position to kick off the project….
• #7 We initiated the project with a period of business process evaluation, performing an extensive review of GIS capabilities and requirements Benchmarked against other Utilities and Ordinance Survey, developing a GIS strategy to provide an Enterprise level service across all business functions. Extensive deep dive in to both the available software and data architectures. Identifying additional data we could introduce during the development, for example Environmental outputs/meter details. The legacy ArcGIS platform had been highly innovative. It was not an option to undo the benefits gifted to the business in the original implementation. SQL used to address complexities and historic inconsistencies in the business’s legacy asset data, which meant that the new GIS platform would be powered with more accurate spatial data. The good news was that we now had the GIS solution we needed and could roll this out to the business…..
• #8 Populating from a 40 million plus data pool, addressing any issues, spatial or attributional, to enable feature population with cleansed data. All symbology sets had to be recreated for publishing. Streamlined attribution outputs per feature including the re-allocation of data types wherever possible, free text fields appeared to be the fashion! Go live release consisted of 12 Primary business applications covering: Reference Digitisation (digitisation of an asset from hour to minutes) Replacement Design Connection Quotations (according to users 35mins saving on average per project). Primary applications are also integrated to our SAP environment allowing for things like automated costing, workorder creation. This has already expanded to 20 incorporating other business processes. Since the Nov release date. With more in development. We have the benefit of a fully automated Ordnance Survey COU process. Right now, we are processing and maintaining approximately 33 million records. As part of this we also automatically feed internal/external data reference points such as Linesearch and our mains replacement program. Although precisely designed to meet user requirements, the apps are all built using out-of-the-box app builders and widgets in ArcGIS. We have already completed 4 upgrades without incident or loss of functionality; this has provided us with the confidence that this will be the case going forward.   Now a small demonstration of what we managed to achieve…..
• #9 Video narration.
• #10 Video narration.
• #11 So, what reward have we gained for all our endeavors? Utilising the flexibility of the platform we have been able to tailor the growing suite of applications specifically to user and process needs. Not only data, but applications are now shared between departments, to enable extended process collaborations between teams. New business solutions can now be scoped and released within, for more basic needs, new datasets etc., a matter of days. More complex requirements, analysis and processing functions, a mere week maybe two (from initial scope to Production). The platform has enabled departments to take responsibility of there spatial data, which in turn leads to better process and decision making. The fantastic thing is we now have the ability to ingest any spatial data we require, enabling the business to enrich any process that needs it.
• #12 The new GIS platform will enable Wales & West Utilities to continually adapt and build new apps to meet future business needs. We are currently building mobile apps, using the ArcGIS Field Maps app builder and the Premium Feature Data Store in ArcGIS Online, which supports high-volume data workflows. These will be constructed using out of the box functionality and the data will be maintained using the same underlying data infrastructure of all Portal based web applications These apps will enable field-based engineers to view network data and capture information on the move, while being kept up to date and returning captured field data for display and use in internal applications, further improving the efficiency of core business operations.
• #13 We’ve retired a 20-year-old, heavily customised, unsupported GIS platform. Redesigned our environment based upon business needs and data requirements. We have a growing suite of applications, that provide everything from general reference to analysis of network infrastructure proximity to incoming Ordnance Survey Change Only Update data (geographical changes). Within these Applications we have provided bespoke capabilities for everything from displaying a print area to sending project creation messages to SAP. As everything has been produced with in the framework of ESRI’s Enterprise environment only Vanilla software has been deployed anywhere with in the infrastructure. The main takeaway here is that Esri’s functionality has enabled us to employ our creativity to develop a platform as much or as little as we need to succeed. Thank-you
• #14 Thank you Kieran,