Automation in Remote Regions Delivers Multiple Benefits to Council

Isaac Regional Council is the resources capital of Queensland, producing more than half of Queensland’s total saleable coal.

The Council’s role is to provide facilities throughout the region in an effective and efficient manner and encourage strategic and sustainable development of the area for the benefit of all residents. As part of Councils continuous improvement strategy, they have looked to technology and in turn to Mipela to implement an automated response system for their Dial Before You Dig (DBYD) enquiries, namely X-Info DBYD suite.

Automation of this service ensures valuable staff resources are retained for important work that technology can’t replace. Regional areas strive to retain great people that deliver value to Council, which was a large part of Isaac Regional Council looking for a solution to these DBYD tasks.

X-Info DBYD suite also delivers a service that responds to enquiries 24/7, regardless of weekends or public holidays.

Having an automated response system in X-Info DBYD suite now means that enquirers will get a quick, accurate response, ensuring Council are doing all they can to not only protect their assets but to also protect council residents from unforeseen disruption.

Powering through South Australia

ElectraNet’s Hill to Hill Transmission line project (H2H project) involves providing a new source of electricity supply to OZ Minerals’ Prominent Hill mine by constructing a new transmission line from Port Augusta to Roxby Downs in South Australia.

For ElectraNet, this is their first major project utilising their new ESRI Enterprise GIS system.

Project staff and contractors have been presented with expanded options for map products including web maps and apps on top of traditional paper based maps. This has meant educating users around possible products and working with them to understand how new products could suit their needs.

The project involves a large component of remote field work with occasionally limited internet connectivity. The challenges to staff using new hardware and software in the field have been managed by the Mipela GIS Specialist from the ElectraNet Keswick office in Adelaide.

The new GIS platform has also meant that ElectraNet project staff have been, for the first time, able to import and export project data in a variety of formats not possible previously.

Mipela’s onsite project GIS Specialist has become the go to point of contact for GIS on the H2H project. Datasets have been created and rationalised for the first time, advice around data transmittals have been provided to project resources and support has been provided to field users on a full time basis.

GIS has been used in ways not seen before at ElectraNet such as providing a monthly update map of construction progress previously managed in spreadsheets.

The work done on the H2H project has fed into the creation of the ElectraNet GIS Governance strategy as well as day to day GIS procedures.

Services provided for the H2H project have also extended into a new project – the Eyre Peninsula line duplication, giving project staff visibility to multiple projects through the GIS.