GISCafe Industry Predictions for 2023 – Dawood

By Jodie Gosselin, GISP, Geospatial Technologies Director, Dawood Engineering

Jodie M. Gosselin, GISP

Geospatial technologies are prevalent in our personal lives. With the advancements of the smart phone, we have an underlying expectation that information is presented to us in a spatial context. Which businesses are near me? What travel delays will I encounter? When will the snowplow come to my street? Where is my teenager driver?

In 2023, I predict that this same level of geospatial expectation becomes fundamentally engrained in our professional lives. Where are the assets that need to be inspected? What travel restrictions will my construction vehicle encounter? Where are existing utilities in relation to proposed construction? When was infrastructure along this route replaced?

The business world has already seen this trend begin. My experiences lead me to believe that the spatial delivery of information will become even more widespread—particularly among non-technical users.

For example, Dawood developed a web-based GIS solution for a major utility company’s land management team. These non-technical professionals—who had been using a spreadsheet-based workflow successfully for years to manage their easement acquisition process— had the foresight to realize that geo-enabling their workflow would save time and money.

Since the company’s land team launched their GIS portal in 2021, collaboration, information retrieval, and efficiency has increased ten-fold. Their ability to visualize acquisition progress created new capabilities, and the web-based nature of the solution provided the entire project team with real-time updates since the data can be maintained from the field or office.

This year, more non-technical users will find similar value using the power of GIS. Administrators and professionals will track activities previously only achieved via spreadsheets, such as employee licensures by state or construction progress status.

Another 2023 trend I see developing is capturing data indirectly lost. This “data waste” occurs on multiple levels. In the utility space, organizations have teams of utility locators identifying underground locations of their assets and spray painting them on the ground for one-call notifications. This type of location data is essentially lost after the paint marks disappear. Our industry is hungry for refined asset data. For utilities, data loss will be captured using GIS, GPS and integrated with existing asset management systems.

Regionally, I believe that the US will advance in 3D and BIM integration similar to Europe. We are already starting to see trends in defining new standards for data delivery in a digital twin environment. However, the US has not experienced consistent practical use. By combining 3D and BIM technology with augmented and virtual reality, the construction and utility sectors will advance, and how we work and access information will evolve.

From a safety perspective, these transformative technologies are critical to visualize facility upgrades—

using a 3D model to identify clash detections and accessibility hurdles proactively not only accelerates repairs but keeps workers safe through realistic upfront planning.

About Author

Jodie M. Gosselin, GISP
Jodie.Gosselin@dawood.net

Jodie Gosselin, GISP, is the geospatial technologies director at Dawood Engineering. She has 18 years of experience in GIS with a focus on utilities and asset management while delivering comprehensive geospatial services across the municipal, transportation, survey, and environmental markets throughout the U.S. and Europe. A known technology expert in the AEC industry, Jodie also integrates story maps, operations dashboards, interactive web mapping, and building information modeling into a project delivery solution. She was recognized as an ArcGIS Desktop Professional and with the Web Transformation Award in 2022, and currently serves on the EnerGIS Conference Planning Committee.

Category: GIS Industry Predictios

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 17th, 2023 at 1:14 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.