Case Study Managing NBN Design & Construction Data€¦ · Case Study Managing NBN Design & Construction Data Bundoora, VIC Suite 22, 2 Enterprise Drive 3083 Phone: 03 9466 5299 Fax:

Case Study Managing NBN Design & Construction Data

Suite 22, 2 Enterprise Drive Bundoora, VIC 3083

Phone: 03 9466 5299 Fax: 03 9466 5222

Email: [email protected] Web: www.iconyx.com

Page 1

The National Broadband Network (NBN) is Australia's first national wholesale, open access communications network. It is being built to bring high speed broadband and telephone services within the reach of all Australian premises. Multiple contractors are being engaged to survey and roll out the NBN across the country, with the job broken down into a series of FSAM areas.

Challenges for the Contractors

Surveying old Telstra infrastructure…

Telstra provides pit and duct asset data to NBN Co which becomes a key part of the NBN design. However the data reflects many decades of maintenance and manual updates and it contains significant gaps and errors.

A huge survey workforce… Surveying a whole state takes multiple surveyor and rod & roping field teams working in parallel, and they need to be constantly fed with new FSAM maps. Time is critical due to the nature of the NBN Co contracts, and a huge amount of information must be captured in densely populated areas.

Costing the Construction… Getting accurate survey information back to the contractor design teams is essential, as the network layout is highly optimized to minimize cost. Contractors must justify every variance with NBN Co.

Documenting all the Telstra remediation……

A huge amount of survey and photo evidence must be sent to Telstra so that pit remediation can happen prior to NBN construction.

Paper survey not enough – Contractors must move to digital All NBN contractors commenced their projects using paper survey maps and manual handling of network data, Field Inspection Report (FIR) data, Address Validation Report (AVR) data and pit remediation photos. It was impossible to meet NBN rollout targets using this approach.

In remote regions with harsh environments – heat, dust, wind and rain - the survey maps were not only incomplete and hard to read, but were also sent back muddy and torn.

When manually transcribing these maps into the NBN Co SpatialNET system and FIR spreadsheets back at the central office, a data entry operator would often miss or misunderstand survey notes, and struggle to connect photos to locations.

The resulting errors, FIR rejections and rework caused enormous financial and time pressures on contractors.

http://www.iconyx.com/



Phone: 03 9466 5299 Fax: 03 9466 5222


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Summit Field Survey Solution for NBN Success The Iconyx Summit Solution provides a turnkey, comprehensive solution for the survey of NBN FSAM infrastructure

to enable a rapid compilation of FIR, AVR and pit remediation reports. Surveyors and rod & roping field teams can

work at any location, regardless of network access. Survey assignments are distributed via the internet and survey

results are submitted the same way with an audit trail. As data is centralized and synchronized, the teams are kept

up to date with activities in adjacent areas, duplication is prevented, work can be easily reassigned, and travel time

can be kept to an absolute minimum. Progress reporting, Quality Control analysis and communication of design

changes back to the central office gives real intelligence to project managers to ensure success.

Hosted Summit System for field survey with Mobile Pen Tablets - synchronises data direct from the field

The Iconyx NBN survey solution includes:

Summit – Hosted web-based Information Management and Reporting system, and central record of all survey data from which FIR, AVR and map reports are produced.

CrestSX – Mobile Mapping tool with user friendly GUI for regular field workers to capture data.

4D Cam – GPS Tablet PC Camera tool with EXIF Geo tagging to mark-up photos of pits shown on the map,

Regional Cadastre (Property) and Street Data – Sourcing, licensing and processing

Setup Services – Automation of file, map and photo transfer to central storage




Phone: 03 9466 5299 Fax: 03 9466 5222


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Digital Forms and Maps

Equipping Field Surveyors with interactive spatial maps, digital survey forms and photo markup tools on GPS Tablet PCs ensured highly accurate and authenticated data was captured for all pits, ducts, FDH locations and network augments. The system is designed for simultaneous use on multiple FSAMs in different states and remote areas.

FSAM Duct inspection – Telstra Duct info & planned NBN usage is displayed for review prior to survey

High level view of FDAs within an FSAM, with DFN loop in blue

Zoom in to Street Level to see all network elements laid out and labelled

Ducts and pits change colour when surveyed and again when rod & roped to inform

System forms include pull-down lists for standard FIR survey responses, mandatory fields for essential data, photos,

diagrams and free text. The tablet PC pen is used for drawing pits, ducts and other survey marks, for filling in form

checkboxes and selecting list options, and for entering free text as handwriting. This has dramatically increased the

quality of the information returned by the survey teams, and completely removed the need for transcribing and

translating survey notes.




Phone: 03 9466 5299 Fax: 03 9466 5222


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Photo and Image Management The Iconyx system manages photo association with pits (for remediation) and ducts (for breakout areas and surface types). The solution includes 4D Cam on the Motion Tablet PCs, which is fully integrated with the survey forms and enables the surveyor to take a photo, tag it with GPS coordinates, and mark up the image to make its meaning clear. This tool is also set up to capture conduit layout diagrams to guide rod & roping and construction.

Motion Pen Tablets with 4D Cam applications – allowing redlining, image mark-ups and EXIF tagging

An Iconyx process automatically names each photo in accordance with NBN Co 18 digit pit numbering naming standards and places them in a required folder within seconds.

FIR, AVR and Reporting The Iconyx system can extract FIR & AVR reports in minutes

SUMMIT export for NBN Co FIR Report (one of several Excel work sheets)

Other tabular and map reports can also be extracted in seconds from Summit, which has significantly helped monitor project progress and speed up operations. Audit trails on data recorded, gives designers source information they can trust.




Phone: 03 9466 5299 Fax: 03 9466 5222


Page 5

Total Field & Office Cost Savings per FSAM is estimated to be $60,000/FSAM

Comparisons were based on observations and interviews with users during live use of the Summit system for NBN survey, combined with historic experience with paper based operations.

Other Commercial Benefits:

Contractual risk and penalties are mitigated

Quality of deliverables improved at all levels of operations - high levels of confidence and rapid progression from design to construction

Other Operational Benefits:

FIR and AVR reports and pit remediation photos are complete and meet NBN standards first time

Design time & costs in getting data in & out of SpatialNET can be reduced by up to 10 business days per FSAM

Field staff rapidly deployed - reducing travel and accommodation expenses for rework in remote areas.

To improve field data quality and increase productivity please call the Iconyx team on (03) 9466 5299


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Case Study Managing NBN Design & Construction Data€¦ · Case Study Managing NBN Design & Construction Data Bundoora, VIC Suite 22, 2 Enterprise Drive 3083 Phone: 03 9466 5299 Fax: