This short interview with Steve Slusarenko, the Director of the SUMDEx initiative, is intended to give an update on the SUMDEx Team’s progress and to give readers an understanding of when the project will be ready to support the damage prevention community.
Since the last update in April, some further milestones have been achieved on the SUMDEx initiative. The good folks at Gopher State One Call and SharedGeo, along with One Call Concepts and various public entities, utilities, and other stakeholders, are beta-testing Phase One of the FuzionView map conflation engine. Phase One is to request the map data from each infrastructure owner via the One Call ticket process and provide this data to the requestor in a common base map as separate layers by utility type and owner. This will allow field personnel to improve situational awareness by viewing all of the infrastructure on a smart device. Phase 2, the ability to provide feedback in the form of data from fieldwork to each utility owner, is now in the early planning and development stages.
Q: What is the focus now, and how has it changed since the last update?
A: Our focus has changed in two areas. One is completing the FuzionView solution and the associated documentation, including implementation and training guides, and ensuring the product support group is in place. The second focus area will be raising public awareness by attending conferences and trade shows to liaise with the stakeholder community and establishing data-sharing agreements between each of the various stakeholders.
Q: Have there been any other significant changes or developments?
A: We are now incorporated as a not-for-profit organization, with our initial Board of Directors and Officers. We will be expanding the board over the next month or so to include more representation from the stakeholder community.
Q: Have there been any improvements, breakthroughs, or challenges in recent months?
A: The FuzionView team has received another tranche of funding that will allow them to complete the project's next phase. That phase is the ability to convey field-verified data back to each respective utility owner regarding the as-found location of their assets to compare with their existing records
Q: What else is the SUMDEx team working on?
A: We continue to work on the data structures (aka data dictionaries) to allow for accurate and complete exchange of infrastructure map data between stakeholders that may use different data collection standards and/or software solutions.
Q: How are similar initiatives doing in other countries?
A: To my knowledge, the National Underground Asset Register (NUAR) project in the UK has gone live in North East England, Wales, and London and is slated to be fully deployed in all regions in 2025.
Here is an article published by the US Common Ground Alliance on the Gopher State One Call Underground Mapping Project:
Q: What opportunities are on the horizon for SUMDEx?
A: In addition to the opportunity for State and Provincial agencies to use SUMDEx to manage data sets of abandoned facilities with unknown ownership and for other agencies such as State or Provincial Disaster Preparedness organizations, we have identified the opportunity for the private sector’s potential use of SUMDEx to build and manage infrastructure maps for large industrial sites, port facilities, airports, universities, et cetera,
Q: How will SUMDEx participate in GoGeomatics Canada Calgary Expo 2024 in October?
A: We have at least six of our team members presenting at the conference, and we will likely have more of our team attending.
To hear more about SUMDEx and other relevant topics, attend the GoGeomatics Expo 2024 in Calgary, Oct 28th-30th, 2024.
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