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Integrated territory management – ​​Are we close?

We live a special moment in the confluence of disciplines that for years have been segmented. Surveying, architectural design, line drawing, structural design, planning, construction, marketing. To give an example of what were traditionally flows; linear for simple projects, iterative and difficult to control depending on the size of the projects.

Today, surprisingly, we have integrated flows between these disciplines that, beyond the technology for data management, share processes. Such that it is difficult to identify where the task of one ends and the other begins; where the delivery of information ends, when the version of a model dies, when the project will be terminated.

Integrated Territory Management -GIT: Do we need a new term?

If we were to baptize this spectrum of processes, which goes from capturing the information needed for a project in a geospatial environment to putting it into operation for the purposes for which it was conceptualized, we will dare to call it Integrated Territorial Management. Although this term has been in other contexts associated with specific earth sciences, we are certainly not in times of respecting conventions; more if we take into account that geo-location has become an intrinsic ingredient of all businesses, and that the vision of BIM levels forces us to think that the scope of Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) would fall short if we consider the limit of its next step, which is Operation. Thinking about a broader scope requires taking into account the current impact of the digitalization of processes, which goes beyond the construction of infrastructures and extends to businesses that do not always have a physical representation, which are not only linked in sequential interoperability. of data but in the parallel and iterative integration of processes.

With this edition In the magazine we welcomed the term Integrated Territorial Management.

The scope of the GIT Integrated Territory Management concept.

For a long time, projects have been seen in their different stages as intermediate ends in themselves. Today, we live in a moment where, on the one hand, information is the currency of exchange from its capture to the point of disposal; But efficient operation also complements this context to turn this data availability into an asset capable of generating greater efficiency and portfolios in the face of market needs.

We speak therefore of the chain composed of the main milestones that add value to the actions of the human being in a macroprocess that beyond being a matter of engineers, is a subject of businesspeople.

Process Approach - the pattern that since -long ago- It is changing what we do.

If we are going to talk about processes, we will therefore have to talk about the value chain, about simplification according to the end user, about innovation and the search for efficiency in order to make the investments profitable.

The processes based on Information Management. Much of the initial effort in the eighties, with the arrival of computerization, the goal was to have good control over the information. On the one hand, at least in the AEC environment, the aim was to reduce the use of physical formats and the application of computational benefits to complex calculations; Hence, CAD initially does not necessarily change the processes but rather leads them to digital control; continue doing almost the same thing, containing the same information, taking advantage of the fact that the media can now be reused. The offset command replaces the parallel rule, the ortho-snap the 90 degree square, the circle the compass, the trim the precise erasing template and so consecutively we took that leap that honestly was not easy or miniscule, just by thinking about the advantage of the layer that in other times would imply tracing the construction plan to work on the structural or hydrosanitary plans. But the time came when the CAD fulfilled its purpose in both dimensions; It became tiring especially for cross-sections, facades and pseudo-three-dimensional displays; This is how 3D modeling arrived before we called it BIM, simplifying these routines and changing much of what we did in 2D CAD.

... Of course, the 3D management at the time ended in static renders that came with some patience because of the limited resources of the hardware and the lack of colors available.

The large software providers for the AEC industry were mutating their functionalities accordingly with these major milestones, which have to do with the capabilities of the hardware and adoption by users. Until a time came when this information management was insufficient, beyond exporting formats, interconnecting master data and a referential integration that was affected by that historical trend of work based on departmentalization.

A little bit of history. Although in the field of industrial engineering the search for efficiency has much more history, the technological adoption of Operation Management in the context of Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) was late and based on circumstances; aspect that today is difficult to measure unless we have been participants in those moments. Many initiatives that came from the seventies gained strength in the eighties with the arrival of the personal computer that, being able to be on every desk, adds to computer-aided design the potential of databases, raster images, internal LAN networks and that possibility of integrate related disciplines. Here appear vertical solutions for pieces of the puzzle such as surveying, architectural design, structural design, budget estimation, inventory control, construction planning; all with technological limitations that were not sufficient for efficient integration. Additionally, standards were almost non-existent, solution providers suffered from stingy storage formats and of course, some resistance –almost extortionate– to change by the industry due to the fact that adoption costs were difficult to sell in an almost equivalent relationship with efficiency and profitability.

Moving beyond this primitive stage of sharing information required new elements. Perhaps the most important milestone was the maturity of the Internet, which beyond giving us the ability to send emails and browse static web pages, opened the door to collaboration. Communities interacting in the era of web 2.0 pushed for standardization, ironically coming from the initiatives open source that right now they no longer sound irreverent and are rather seen with new eyes by the private industry. The GIS discipline was one of the best examples, coming against all odds in many moments to overcome proprietary software; debt that to date has not been able to be reciprocated in the CAD-BIM industry. Things had to fall due to their weight due to the maturity of thought and undoubtedly the changes in the B2B business market in the fuel of a globalization based on connectivity.

Yesterday we closed our eyes and today we wake up seeing that trends such as geolocation have become intrinsic and therefore not only changes in the digitization industry, but an inevitable transformation of the design and manufacturing market.

Processes based on Operation Management. The process approach leads us to break the paradigms of the segmentation of disciplines in the style of departmentalization of offices separated by a wall and a solid wooden door. Surveying equipment came to have display and digitization capabilities, draftsmen went from being simple line-drawers to object modelers; Architects and engineers began to dominate the geospatial industry that provided more data thanks to geolocation. This changed the focus from small deliveries of information files to processes where the modeling objects are only the nodes of a file that is fed between the disciplines of topography, civil engineering, architecture, industrial engineering, marketing and geomatics –without ruling out the use of some code-.

Modeling  Thinking about models was not easy, but it happened. Today it is not difficult to understand that a plot of land, a bridge, a building, an industrial plant or a railway are the same. An object, which is born, grows, produces results and one day will die.

BIM is the best long-term concept that the integrated management industry has had. Perhaps its greatest contribution to the standardization route is the balance between the unbridled inventiveness of the private sector in the technological field and the demand for solutions that private and government companies require to offer better services or produce better results with those resources available to the industry. The conceptualization of BIM, although it has been seen in a limited way by many in its application to physical infrastructures, certainly has a greater scope when we imagine BIM hubs conceived at higher levels under the vision of digital twins, where the integration of real life include disciplines such as education, finance, security, among others.

The Value Chain - from the information to the operation.

Today, solutions are not focused on responding to a specific discipline. Specific tools for tasks such as modeling a topographic surface or budgeting have reduced appeal if they cannot be integrated into upstream, downstream, or parallel flows. This is the reason that drives leading companies in the industry to provide solutions that comprehensively solve the need in its entire spectrum, in a value chain with links that are difficult to isolate.

This chain is composed of phases that gradually fulfill complementary purposes, breaking the linear sequence and promoting parallelism towards efficiency in time, cost and traceability; unavoidable elements of the current quality models.

The concept Integrated Territory Management GIT proposes a sequence of phases, from the conception of the business model until it goes into production of the expected results. In these different phases, the priorities for controlling information gradually decrease until the management of the operation; and to the extent that innovation implements new tools, it is possible to simplify steps that no longer add value. As an example:

Printing plans is no longer important from the moment they can be viewed on a practical tool, such as a tablet or an augmented reality device.

The identification of the associated land plots in quadrant map logic no longer adds value to models that won’t be printed at scale, that will be constantly changing and that requires a nomenclature not associated with non-physical attributes such as urban / rural condition or spatial belonging to an administrative region.

In this integrated flow, it is when the user identifies the value of being able to use their topography equipment not only to capture data in the field, but to model before reaching the office, recognizing that it is a simple input that days later will be used to rethink a design at the beginning of a construction. The site where the field result is stored ceases to provide value, as long as it is available when it is needed and its versioning control; Therefore, the xyz coordinate captured in the field is just one element of a cloud of points that stopped being a product and became an input, of another input, of a final product that is increasingly visible in the chain. That is why the plan with its contour lines is no longer printed, because it does not add value by devaluing from a product to an input of the conceptual volume model of a building, which is another input of the architectural model, which will now have a structural model, a electromechanical model, a construction planning model. All, as a kind of digital twins that will end in an operation model of the building already constructed; what the client and its investors initially expected from its conceptualization.

The contribution of the chain is in the added value on the initial conceptual model, in the different phases from capture, modeling, design, construction and finally management of the final asset. Phases that are not necessarily linear, and that in the AEC industry (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) require a link between the modeling of physical objects such as land or infrastructure with non-physical elements; people, businesses, and the everyday relationships of real-world registration, governance, advertising, and asset transfer.

Information Management + Operation Management. Reinventing processes is inevitable.

The level of maturity and convergence between the Construction Information Modeling (BIM) with the Production Life Cycle (PLM), envisage a new scenario, which has been called Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).

IoT - 4iR - 5G - Smart Cities - Digital Twin - iA - VR - Blockchain.  

The new terms result of the BIM + PLM convergence.

Today there are plenty of initiatives triggering terms that we must learn every day, a consequence of the increasingly closer BIM + PLM event. These terms include the Internet of Things (IoT), Smart Cities, Digital Twins, 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), to name a few. It is questionable how many of these elements will disappear as insufficient clichés, thinking in a real perspective of what we can expect and leaving aside the time wave in post-apocalyptic films that also give sketches of how great it could be... and according to Hollywood, almost always catastrophic.

Infographic of Integrated Territory Management.

The infographic presents a global vision of the spectrum that for now has not had a specific term, which from our perspective we are calling Integrated Territorial Management. This, among others, has been used as a temporary #hashtag at events by leading companies in the industry, but as our introduction says, it has not received a deserved name.

This infographic tries to show something that is honestly not easy to capture, much less interpret. If we consider the priorities of different industries that are transversal throughout the cycle, although with different evaluation criteria. In this way, we can identify that, although modeling is a general concept, we could consider that its adoption has gone through the following conceptual sequence:

Geospatial Adoption - CAD Massification - 3D Modeling - BIM Conceptualization - Digital Twins Recycling - Smart City Integration.

From a perspective of scope of modeling, we see the expectation of users to approach reality in a gradual manner, at least in promises as follows:

1D - File management in digital formats,

2D - The adoption of digital designs replacing the printed plan,

3D - The three-dimensional model and its global geo-location,

4D - Historical versioning in a time-controlled manner,

5D - The incursion of the economic aspect in the resulting cost of unit elements,

6D - The management of the life cycle of modeled objects, integrated into the operations of their context in real time.

Undoubtedly, in the previous conceptualization there are different views, especially because the application of modeling is cumulative and not exclusive. The vision raised is only one way of interpreting from the perspective of benefits that users have seen as we have adopted technological developments in the industry; be this Civil Engineering, Architecture, Industrial Engineering, Cadastre, Cartography ... or the accumulation of all these in an integrated process.

Finally, the infographic shows the contribution that the disciplines have been led to the standardization and adoption of the digital world in the daily routines of the human being.

GIS - CAD - BIM - Digital Twin - Smart Cities

In a way, these terms gave priority to innovation efforts led by people, companies, governments and above all academics that led to what we now see with fully mature disciplines such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the contribution that represented Computer Aided Design (CAD), currently evolving to BIM although, with two challenges due to the adoption of standards but with a clearly outlined path in the 5 levels of maturity (BIM levels).

Some trends in the Integrated Territorial Management spectrum are currently under pressure to position the Digital Twins, Internet of Things and Smart Cities concepts; the first more like a dynamic of streamlining digitalization under a logic of adoption of operating standards; the latter as an ideal application scenario. Smart Cities expands the vision to many disciplines that could be integrated into a vision of what human activity should be like in the ecological context, management aspects such as water, energy, sanitation, food, mobility, culture, coexistence, infrastructure and economy.

But in some aspects of the chain we are still far away. The reasons for the existence of information and modeling in many aspects still depend on whoever executes the work or makes decisions. There is still much to build from the end user's side, so that their role generates usability demands in the different disciplines of current Smart City concepts.

The impact on solution providers is crucial, in the case of the AEC industry, software, hardware and service providers must go after a user market that expects much more than painted maps and attractive renders. The battle is on between giants like Hexagon, Trimble with similar models from markets they acquired in recent years; AutoDesk + Esri in search of a magic key that integrates its large user segments, Bentley with its disruptive scheme that already includes key players such as Siemens, Microsoft and Topcon as a public company.

This time the rules of the game are different; It is not about launching solutions for surveyors, civil engineers or architects. Users today expect comprehensive solutions, focused on processes and not on information files; with more freedom for personalized adaptations, with reusable apps throughout the flow, interoperable and, above all, in the same model that supports the integration of different projects.

We are undoubtedly living a great moment. New generations will not have the privilege of seeing the birth and closure of a cycle in this spectrum of Integrated Geo Territorial. You won't know how exciting it was to run AutoCAD on a single-task 80-286, the patience of waiting for the layers of an architectural plan to appear, with the desperation of not being able to run Lotus 123 where we kept the unit cost sheets on a screen. black and bright orange letters. You will not be able to know the adrenaline of seeing for the first time a cadastral map hunt on a binary raster in Microstation, running on an Intergraph VAX. Definitely, no, they won't be able to.

Without much surprise they will see many more things. Testing one of the first prototypes of the Hololens in Amsterdam a few years ago, brought me part of that feeling from my first encounter with CAD platforms. Surely we ignore the scope that this fourth industrial revolution will have, of which until now we see ideas, innovative for us but primitive before what it will imply to adapt to a new environment where the ability to unlearn will be much more valuable than academic degrees and years from experience.

What’s certain is that it will arrive earlier than expected.

Golgi Alvarez

Writer, researcher, specialist in Land Management Models. He has participated in the conceptualization and implementation of models such as: National Property Administration System SINAP in Honduras, Management Model of Joint Municipalities in Honduras, Integrated Cadastre-Registry Management Model in Nicaragua, Territory Administration System SAT in Colombia . Editor of the Geofumadas knowledge blog since 2007 and creator of the AulaGEO Academy that includes more than 100 courses on GIS - CAD - BIM - Digital Twins topics.

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