Quality-Assured Handover of Geographic Data in Building Projects​

Abstract: Relevant and quality-assured geographic data is critical information in several steps of the building process. There are many methods for quality-assuring geographic data during data collection, and in the building process, but in order for the data to be useful throughout the life cycle of a facility it is important that the data maintains reliability and quality even after the handover from a building project. The handover of geographic data from building projects has, by municipal management units, been described as inefficient. When designers do not follow the client's requirements the data must be handled manually, which is both time consuming and a possible risk for the quality of the data. In a time that place great demands on efficiency, quality and sustainability, it is not justifiable to manually digitizing data that has previously already been digital, furthermore there is also a risk that the human factor and interpretations affect the data quality. There are factors in the handover process that needs to be prevented in order to achieve an unbroken information supply throughout the life cycle of a facility. In this thesis, a qualitative study has been conducted with the purpose to identify what factors in the handover process prevent quality-assured handover of geographic data from building projects to management organizations. The findings of the study should also result in recommendations of how the City of Stockholm and other municipalities in general can prevent obstacles in the handover process to assure that geographic data maintains its quality throughout the handover. To identify barriers in the handover of geographic data in building projects, the data collection in this study was done through several interviews with project managers, designers and system managers. The results show that important factors for a successful, quality-assured handover of geographic data are related requirements and communication. Final recommendations in order to assure that the geographic data maintains its quality throughout the handover are: early involvement of the management, clear and early communicated requirements, improved communication to achieve a more holistic view, and automated processes that could replace manual work and check data against requirements.