When we speak of mobile mapping, we speak about capabilities well beyond the ability to see where you are on a map that is displayed on a cell phone or navigation device. The idea of mobile mapping is to be able to view, edit and integrate with your geographic information system (GIS) data while in the field. This capability has long been a priority in many enterprises with large field workforces. Sophisticated deployments of mobile mapping capabilities are now taking place on a large scale, with great benefits to efficiency.
The components of mobile mapping include a GPS receiver, a rugged handheld or laptop computer and GIS software. The combination of these three technologies, with real-time access to enterprise data, adds greatly enhanced insight to jobs such as natural resource management, emergency response, utility maintenance, facility inspection, building or maintenance crews, oil and gas exploration, and other areas where field workers jobs are tied strongly to assets in the field.
It’s much more than knowing where you are. It’s about relating the issue to your surroundings, and communicating the issue with others along with its location and scope, for a quicker and better resolution. It’s also about empowering workers in the field to conduct mapping tasks. By enabling the people that are most in touch with the situation to access and update information at the point of contact, you make higher-quality updates to the information that the enterprise relies upon. This constant update at point of contact has increasing returns as the data improves in currency and accuracy every time it is accessed and updated from the field.
Hardware Options
Gone are the days of carrying a heavy full-sized laptop computer that you have to shield from the sun and connect via cables to a GPS receiver, with a cell phone in one hand for communication, and a backpack full of cables and extra batteries strapped to your back. This unwieldy field setup of the not-too-distant past has given way to handheld computers with integrated GPS receivers. These devices have come a long way in recent years, and they continue to evolve to add greater positional accuracy, lighter weight, larger and brighter screens, and longer-lasting batteries.
Specifically, the professional-grade handheld devices from Trimble and Magellan are enabling larger field crews a means for quick access to field information in a form factor that’s easy to handle and easy to interface with. Software tools such as ESRI’s ArcPad software and MapFrame’s FieldSmart make data updates and syncing with the office a an easier effort. Customized menus and workflows can be made without a huge amount of effort in order to streamline these tools to specific tasks.
Quality Improvements
The benefits for an organization that provides mobile mapping to its field crews are better and quicker service, better data, a streamlined organization that reacts much more readily to evolving situations, and a workforce that is empowered by access to data and information.
Location is the foundation for any work that needs to be done outside of a central office. The efficiency gains for an organization that implements mobile mapping mean a fairly short return on the investment. Mobile mapping will have an increasing role to play in a myriad of industries and applications as the amount of geospatial data increases, and as communication becomes ubiquitous.
The evolving role of mobile mapping will lead to much more autonomy and flexibility for fieldworkers, enriching their connection to their work, and leading to a more proactive organization.
View Jeff Thurston’s thoughts on this subject here.
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