CASE STUDY

The challenge:

The @one Alliance is central to Anglian Water’s capital delivery programme, overseeing over 50% of Anglian Water’s AMP7 capital construction at a value of £1.2bn. We spoke to Emma Morgan, Geospatial Lead for the @one Alliance, for some context on this and the experience working with MGISS to meet the needs of the collaborative team.

“The @one Alliance is Anglian Water’s largest capital delivery route,” Emma explains. “So, we deliver construction projects ranging from putting sensors in manholes to big cross-country pipelines to upgrades to our existing treatment works, our buildings, new pumping stations – anything to do with the way we get both water and wastewater in the region. So, we basically help Anglian Water deliver their capital programme as efficiently as possible.”

At MGISS, we know all about the importance of GIS in utility infrastructure and asset management for our customers, and Emma reiterates just how important of a role GIS plays in a programme of this scale. “GIS really is ingrained, from the very start of solution development, right the way through to project handover. All of the underground assets are managed within a GIS database, so what we provide to our design teams is a way to surface existing assets but also a way to optioneer and solution new assets, upgrades to existing assets, view environmental constraints, anything like that. We essentially provide a means for collaborative planning when it comes to designing projects.”

Central to the @one Alliance’s success is the use of Ordnance Survey’s MasterMap®, a detailed and highly accurate mapping dataset covering the entire UK. Unlike standard base maps, MasterMap provides an unparalleled level of detail, including individual buildings, land features, and underground assets, making it an essential tool for precision-driven projects. In the context of Anglian Water’s capital programme, where identifying and navigating environmental constraints or buried infrastructure can make or break a project, this level of detail ensures every decision is informed and every route carefully planned.

“So Anglian Water obviously has a licence for MasterMap across the whole region, so it forms a basis for a lot of our drawings.” Emma tells us. “But before we put any of our route planning into our CAD drawings, we always start with in GIS, so MasterMap provides a much more accurate view than the existing standard base maps that we get from Esri, or from other open-source places. We use it in conjunction with higher resolution imagery, and sometimes, as we don’t always get topographical surveys for some part of our pipelines, it provides the best backdrop and that consistent view from GIS into our CAD software for our teams to design and optioneer.”

And why is a powerful and effective GIS system so essential for Anglian Water and the @one Alliance? Emma explains the challenges inherent in such a large capital programme. “Dealing with anything underground. you can’t see it, and a lot of the records that we deal with aren’t hugely accurate, so we utilise the GIS system in planning, to try and identify where assets are in relation to other things. Strike avoidance is a big one for us, that’s probably one of the key challenges. Minimising impacts to the environment is another one, understanding where constraints are, how to avoid them.
Identifying problems early on is really, really key, so that we can take the right action as early as possible, such as consenting, getting permission to do certain key construction activities and enabling activities, getting permission from the right stakeholders. Early identification is something that has been a challenge in the past and something the GIS system helps with.”

The Solution:

Understanding the challenges our clients face and crafting a unique solution is what makes MGISS tick, and our already-established relationship with Anglian Water and the @one Alliance gave us a good foundation for working to meet these needs.
Emma recalls that during a previous demonstration from MGISS, they were intrigued with the base maps in the ArcGIS. They immediately saw the benefit for their system: “Leveraging OS basemaps in to existing software was a really straightforward way to utilise what we already had in the business, but that had just never been put into GIS before!”

MGISS delivered a tailored solution that simplifies the integration of OS MasterMap data into Anglian Water’s GIS workflows. By converting MasterMap data into optimised Vector Map tiles and publishing them directly into Esri ArcGIS, MGISS ensures that all the styling and symbology from the original data is automatically transferred. This annual service does all the heavy lifting for the client, enabling seamless updates and eliminating the need for manual conversion or adjustments.

The Results:

“It’s definitely helped when it comes to giving confidence to the designers that they are designing routes accurately from the start,” Emma says. “Our process is that our pipeline designers will, first of all, start designing their routes within the GIS system, and then once they enter the detailed design phase it will get pulled into CAD utilising the ArcGIS connector for them to carry on working on.
Pushing everyone into the same consistent process and having everyone on the same platform has been really, really beneficial and it’s massively helped increase collaboration. It means that everyone can see each other’s routes, enabling collaboration with other design teams, the Enabling Team to help mitigate environmental constraints, the Customer Team, who communicate with the customers, to easily assess customer impact – everyone can see what’s going on all in one platform.
It’s also helping when it comes to do some of the more simple drawings. Land entry notices, for example, is something that we are now doing in GIS, whereas previously we had to do that in CAD because it needed that level of backdrop,
And we’re looking to now do Trial Hole drawings, and other drawings that would traditionally be done in CAD. The information is now there, available in GIS, which will make the process a lot more efficient, bringing it all upfront, and meaning that our very precious CAD resource isn’t under immense strain!”

This shift from CAD to GIS demonstrates the transformative impact of tailored geospatial solutions. By addressing specific challenges and enhancing usability, MGISS has enabled @one Alliance to streamline processes and empower a wider range of users across their team.

A more fit-to-purpose system can be transformative for any project and organisation, With the extra power of MasterMap alongside their existing CAD processes, Anglian Water and the @one Alliance have moved into a more capable position to support their excellent team.

“It’s been hugely beneficial,” Emma commends. Using the MasterMap with our existing topographical data that the utilities are marked on, then having that grey scale which MGISS customised for us (as well as full colour), really helps a lot of people – we’ve got someone in our team that’s done an awful lot of work around accessibility and colour vision deficiencies – having different base maps is really useful for people to just see things slightly better as well. It makes a massive difference on the way people work having that customisable option available, it’s really useful. Plus, the team were easy to talk to, quick on communication and it was a really simple thing to get done, from our point of view, straightforward and efficient.
Producing drawings in GIS and not in CAD has made things so much more efficient, and has opened the door for more people to be able to do it. So technical coordinators and designers can use the system a lot more, and it relieves a lot of the pressure from our CAD team to work more towards producing technical drawings and models for construction and reducing any rework.”

We asked Emma what kind of difference it’s made having this solution to carry through the project. “In the @one Alliance, we’re in a good position where we get projects right from early inception. So as soon as Anglian water identify the need, we help throughout the entire solutioneering,
And that upfront design has been where it’s really, really useful, aiding with collaboration and aiding with a more effective, efficient, and mobile way of working. It’s definitely most valuable in those early design stages,”

So, whether the focus is on addressing diverse workflows or enabling new opportunities for innovation, a tailored solution can carry that heavy weight, leaving other resources and valued team contributors to see the data through, from inception to delivery.

“The solution MGISS provided us with,” Emma concludes, “has been hugely beneficial to us, because it’s opened the doors to much more efficient ways of working, and it’s made the system far more collaborative and enabled so many processes to be brought forward in design into our GIS platform.”