Field Views from Sigma Seven

News and Views from the wonderful world of map-based field working

Address data sorted

Andy Gosney delivers the good news about Sigma Seven’s address solution

Sigma Seven is launching NLPG Mobile Manager, a new application which allows gazetteer custodians to edit and create address data records in the field using mobile technology. Based upon the successful GeoField platform, this unique product has been developed for the local authority market in the UK. In collaboration with Nottingham based Rushcliffe Borough Council, the solution has been developed to help manage the Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) data that each local authority is legally obliged to maintain. This in turn flows into the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) which is commercially available as a national address dataset used for finance, retail and government purposes such as the census.

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Currently, to maintain data in the field, custodians use processes which have involved the use of thousands of paper plots. This is hardly an all weather method and data is routinely returned to the office damaged, degraded, or simply missing. The subsequent manual data input process to actually get new or edited address information into gazetteer and GIS systems is time consuming and is often hindered by the poor state of data. This is a fault of the process and undermines the hard and diligent work of the custodians and their teams of field workers.

 NLPG Mobile Manager gives the custodian the tools to collect data at source with all his/her existing data (e.g. OS MasterMap and existing LLPG records) to hand and providing a precise context. The data is stored electronically in an industry standard format which can be paired with the office gazetteer software. This cuts out the manual data entry process and removes any chance of data degradation. The intuitive interface displays easy to follow data edit and creation functions that can be taught easily and quickly to field workers, even non-experts. This tool has been designed and developed by address data producers for address data producers and will create efficiencies and improved data quality.

 NLPG Mobile Manager is bundled with the powerful Viliv X70 Ultra Mobile Personal Computer (UMPC) as standard. A fully fledged UMPC, capable of all the standard Windows PC functions one would expect, coupled with a 6-8 hour battery life, makes the Viliv X70 and NLPG Mobile Manager an ideal combination for this kind of work. Keep an eye on upcoming issues of Field Views where we will bring you a case study of NLPG Mobile Manager in action. Until then, if you have any questions or enquiries please contact andrew.gosney@sigmaseven.co.uk