Archive for the 'Highways' Category

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Confirm v9 Webinar dates available

Published on September 20, 2009 in Bridges & Structures, Central Government, Grounds, Highways, Local Government, Pavement Management, Property Maintenance, Refuse & Waste, Street Cleansing, Street Lighting, Street Works, Trees and Utility Organisation. 0 Comments
Confirm - going like a train since November 1997

Confirm - going like a train since November 1997

With Confirm v9 being launched on October 5th, the webinar dates are published for the first time on our “downloads” page.  Have a look, using the TABs at the top of this page.

We have so much in 2009 in v9 that 9 webinars are needed.  Each will be 45 minutes long. We are using Webex and those who have registered will receive an email, then click on a “link” 5 minutes before the webinar is due to begin. 

For users who have not used this capability before, it may be an idea to have a word with your IT department to check that your PC will be OK and, of course, make sure you can be by a telephone.

In the next two weeks, all Confirm users will be receiving an email from Pitney Bowes Business Insight with details of the launch webinars and how to register.  The webinars will show the new functionality in the context of their domain and Confirm’s configurable workflows…a “contextual style” rather than listing each enhancement and letting users work it out for themselves. 

We are hoping that most Confirm users will be able to view the enhancements rather than what happened in previous years when only those who attended “launch events” got to see them and ask questions.

This week’s picture?  Locomotive 999 in the Museum of Science and Industry.  Confirm’s “Industry” is Government and “Science” - well, there are ten “Profession based Industries” that have developed the science of managing public infrastructure assets and our users are involved with all of them: Roads, Bridges, Lighting, Street Works, PMS, Property Maintenance, Horticulture, Arboriculture, Cleansing and Waste.  

Confirm, of course, can deal with any permutation of them…going like a train since November 1997!

Pure Gold 999 – Confirm v9

Published on September 13, 2009 in Bridges & Structures, Central Government, Grounds, Highways, Local Government, Pavement Management, Property Maintenance, Refuse & Waste, Street Cleansing, Street Lighting, Street Works, Trees, Utility Organisation and v9.0 Roadmap. 0 Comments
Confirm v9 is being launched on October 5th 2009 with 9 webinars: Pure Gold!

Confirm v9 is being launched on October 5th 2009 with 9 webinars: Pure Gold!

They say that pure Gold is .999 and I have been looking at the first draft of the What’s new in Confirm v9 document.  It’s 20 pages with no pictures and screen-shots, reflecting the amount of development that has gone into the 2009 version.

Dividing the enhancements into categories is quite difficult – what categories should be used.  I have decided to focus on the business benefit that is accrued to our users and potential users.  The launch Webex seminars (which will be recorded, so don’t worry of you miss one, you can play it back on demand) will bring out the enhancements in the context of what Confirm can now do for your business.

The categories that seem to ring (another golden reference) true at the moment are:

1. User ideas that have been turned into Confirm enhancements

2. Ideas that have arisen when Users have tested preliminary versions of enhancements and our developers have followed the software into the field; a sort of “now I see the new functionality, it would also be an idea if it could also do x or y or z”.  I call these User Centred Design (UCD) ideas.

3. Technology updates (it now works with Oracle 11 or MapInfo v10 and so on).

4. New module (some of which also will include ideas in Category 2)

The v9 enhancements are spread across all 10 domains that Confirm covers: Highways/Roads; Structures/Bridges; Street Lighting; PMS; Street Works; Property Maintenance; Grounds; Trees; Street Cleaning and Refuse/Waste.

We recognise the “pure Gold” attitude of Confirm users who ultimately bring more efficient public services to citizens.  Citizens really want the “provision” part to be invisible, but so efficient that they never see it.  For example, Citizens want perfect roads, all of the time and no traffic jams; they want Parks to play in with perfect grass, beautiful flowers, clean seats, empty bins and safe play areas for the young citizens and no mowers in sight; they want the streets that they use to be clean, well light and safe without tripping over Mechanical Street Sweepers.

We will keep our focus in the days leading up to the launch, showing how your organisation will benefit in playing its part in the Value chain.

And this week’s picture?  Part of “pure gold” – .999 percent pure and as pure as possible.

IT systems and OT systems

Published on August 11, 2009 in Bridges & Structures, Central Government, Highways, Local Government, Property Maintenance, Street Lighting and Utility Organisation. 0 Comments Tags: .

With the recent Street Lighting conference focusing on self monitoring and remotely controlled lighting followed by the publication on 10 August by the Gartner report titled “The Value of IT and OT Integration” are we starting to see the emergence of a new cashable efficiency area? 

Large scale Government procurements of IT systems in our space are starting to “float” the idea of self monitoring assets (e.g. in tunnels and property) to reduce the overall cost of maintenance.

OT systems refer to “Operational Technology” systems, meaning “systems” that run assets or the service delivery process that it the purpose of the asset.  They can work in either direction – turning down or up the street lighting at various times of the day or sending warnings when an asset is about to fail.  OT systems often include software linked to sensors.  The outputs can often point to web pages that in turn make data available to IT systems but most often produce outputs that are proprietary.  Caution might be an idea if you are in the market anytime soon.

Integration between OT and IT systems not requiring operator presence might be the “ideal”, but there are at least two critical questions:

1. What process or processes is/are triggered by what output(s) from the sensor

2. Can the OT and IT systems be integrated and how robust are they (the definition of robust might be: quick to implement; low cost to implement; break hardly ever and reliable)

Depending on the OT system, outputs might vary from “Inspect me, I might be failing” to “Get someone out here to fix or replace me, right now”.  An amusing thought, perhaps, but think of closing a tunnel just to inspect the lights…in a busy city…and it suddenly starts to sound quite the cost saving point of view.  Think about a very high street lamp column on a busy roundabout where traffic flows are busy 20 hours a day…making more sense yet?

Where our Confirm system sits in this equation will evolve.  The first integration of IT and OT happened around 1997 with a Confirm in CyberJaya (Malaysia) and a series of building Self Monitoring sensors (lifts, lighting circuits and the like).  What happens in future, will we find out together?  Will it be led by a few projects?  Will legislation lead the way – reducing Carbon Footprint in the Street Lighting department is an obvious one, but what if a new report shows how a new breed of self monitoring assets can enable Inspectors to be re-purposed to operational staff?

It would be great to hear some stories of how your IT and OT systems integrate…or not.  Please email me or post a comment.  If there are common threads, maybe the Confirm users will lead the way…stranger things have happened (Confirm was the first product of our type in the field with hand held computers in 1994 and currently have over 3,040 Confirm mobile modules working every day, “out there”).

What’s your view, what’s your story?

Local Government IT Excellence Awards 2009

Published on July 10, 2009 in Bridges & Structures, Grounds, Highways, Local Government, Pavement Management, Property Maintenance, Refuse & Waste, Street Cleansing, Street Lighting, Street Works and Trees. 0 Comments
Local Government IT excellence awards 2009

Local Government IT excellence awards 2009

Three organisations sponsor the Local Government IT Excellence awards – SOLACE, SOCITM and Intellect.  The awards are now open and I know of many Confirm users who have an excellent story to tell and thus a decent chance of winning.

Do you know about these awards?  Are you interested?

Follow the link to find out more: IT Excellence awards 2009

The awards should be submitted by Monday 10th August and questions can go to Carla Baker on 020 7331 2164 carla.baker@intellect.org

Confirm and the “Inspire Directive” from the EU

Published on June 22, 2009 in Central Government, Grounds, Highways, Local Government, Pavement Management, Refuse & Waste, Street Cleansing, Street Lighting, Street Works and Trees. 1 Comment Tags: .

Have you even heard of the “Inspire Directive”?  How, if at all, is it relevant to you?

I have been hearing about it for some while now and asked a colleague to explain what it is and why it might be of interest to Confirm users.

The Inspire Directive will help organisations share data about public assets

The Inspire Directive will help organisations share data about public assets

It is a European Directive that mandates how people share data, especially data about the Environment that will help where an emergency event happens that requires data to be pulled together at short notice to mount a co-ordinated public response – events like flooding, terrorist attacks, hurricanes and so on.

Confirm users are often the Custodians of such data and the Inspire Directive will either ask them to add fields to their data or ask their colleagues to create “standard data” about their data (aka meta-data).  Additionally, should the need arise, they will need to make their data shareable at short notice via one of the standard methods being mandated within the Directive.

So, this article is here to ask Confirm users: “what has happened within your organisation so far?”  Have you, for example, been asked to enhance your data by a certain date?  Have you been asked to attend meetings about Inspire?  Is there a need for us to discuss Inspire with our Customers now, in the immediate future or at a date set out on the Inspire website: http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ 

Would you like to share your thoughts on the matter with me, so that we can align Confirm with your organisation’s Inspire compliance activities?  dominic.mcneillis@pb.com

Self Monitoring Assets

Published on June 18, 2009 in Highways, Local Government, Street Lighting and Utility Organisation. 0 Comments Tags: .
Self monitoring assets may be the way to go. Will they be a good investment? How long before they provide a return on your investment?

Self monitoring assets may be the way to go. Will they be a good investment? How long before they provide a return on your investment?

I was at the Lighting Conference in The Hotel Russell, London on Wednesday 17 June 2009.  One of the most talked about topics was self monitoring Lighting Assets.  There are several companies around that provide Street Lighting Assets with self monitoring equipment – one types uses WIMAC868 and another sends signals via the existing cable network.

Either way, Confirm (in its present form) can interact with these “alerts” in order to create an “inspection”, “defect” or “job”.  The system can also send email alerts to staff to ensure that they are aware of the existence of the “signals”.  Imagine, a Street Light that tells you that it is about to fail – replace expensive parts at the optimum time to maximise their life rather than bulk change (which is the prevalent “least worst” method).

If you feel that you might be interested in discussing Confirm’s little known and little talked about capabilities in the Self Monitoring Asset arena, then please post a comment, contact your Account Manager/Account Director or send me an email (dominic.mcneills@pb.com).  Should Confirm be providing user configurable interfaces?  Will you be spending to save?  Is your focus more on reduction of crime and social engineering (e.g. turning the lights to 50% power at 10pm to signal to the younger “kids” to go home) than cost savings?

Pitney Bowes Business Insight is now the Sole Provider of SQA Award for Road Works Administration

Published on June 15, 2009 in Highways, Local Government, Street Works and Utility Organisation. 0 Comments Tags: .

Pitney Bowes Business Insight is now an approved Scottish Qualifications Authority Training Centre.  In association with Scottish Qualifications Authority we are now able to offer a fully accredited customised course in RoadWorks Administration (SQA Award No. G8LG 04), which is a Scottish Government Owned Award.

 

The following 6 units will make up the award (NB:  all six units are required to receive the full SQA Record of Achievement).

·         SQA Unit F20J 04  - Legislation

·         SQA Unit F20E 04 – Training

·         SQA Unit F20F 04 – Safety and Inspections

·         SQA Unit F20G 04 – Co-ordination

·         SQA Unit F20H 04 – Finance

·         SQA Unit F20K 04 – Notice and Registrations

Who should attend?
This course is open to managers, planners, designers, operatives and anyone who is involved with Road and Street Works process within Roads Authorities, Statutory Undertakers, Utility Companies and Sub-Contractors.

Where will these courses take place?
We will Endeavour to hold these training courses on customer site

What are the costs?
The course has a daily rate of £995 charged per organisation – places available from min 1 to max of 6.
NB: (If travel is required then expenses will be charged in addition to the daily rate).

To sign up and receive further details please contact Daryn Magee, Scottish Account Director
Tel: 01753 848200 or email: daryn.magee@pb.com

 

I was asked: “…so, what exactly is Confirm?”

Published on June 5, 2009 in Bridges & Structures, Central Government, Grounds, Highways, Local Government, Pavement Management, Property Maintenance, Refuse & Waste, Street Cleansing, Street Lighting, Street Works, Trees and Utility Organisation. 0 Comments Tags: .

Recognise the question?  Ever wanted a little help explaining it?  This is one of the most frequent questions we are asked and I thought, as I am in the middle of preparing to meet our copywriters to get the next generation of Confirm flyers produced, I might share my source document with you.  Download, file it, even read it!  It may help you not have to re-invent the wheel next time there is a re-shuffle (timely today, politics fans) and the new boss taps the door and asks, ever so politely: “So, what exactly is Confirm – no more than  400 words, please?”  What is Confirm?

NB: you will see a professional verion of this appearing by the end of June in the Downloads section.

Bag It Bin It

Published on June 3, 2009 in Highways, Local Government, Refuse & Waste and Street Cleansing. 0 Comments

 

Litter, and the problems it causes on motorways and major A roads, is in the spotlight as the Highways Agency’s spring “Bag it! and Bin it!” campaign against roadside litter gets underway.

http://www.highways.gov.uk/news/pressrelease.aspx?pressreleaseid=164204

How is your council keeping on top it?

Transformational Government – three years on

Published on May 15, 2009 in Bridges & Structures, Central Government, Grounds, Highways, Local Government, Pavement Management, Property Maintenance, Refuse & Waste, Street Cleansing, Street Lighting, Street Works and Trees. 2 Comments
The latest report from the CIO is about Local and Central Government performance

The latest report from the CIO is about Local and Central Government performance

Three years on, progress has been made in the three major change areas set out in the Transformational Government strategy in 2005:

  • A focus on the citizen – not the supplier of public services
  • Joining up – to reduce wasteful duplication and enable personalisation
  • More professional project delivery

Read the report that was released on Thursday and form an opinion – then let us know.  http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/cio/transformational_gov/annual_report2008.aspx

This is the third annual Transformational Government report, setting out the progress that has been made during 2008. It shows how the Cabinet Office has worked with government departments and the wider public sector across service boundaries to develop solutions, programmes and services that are both effective and efficient from the perspective of the customer, the taxpayer and staff.

Government is committed to a range of citizen-focused activities designed to optimise service design and delivery, and is proud that the United Kingdom is held up as providing some world-class examples of Transformational Government.

Is the focus on building citizen centric services?  Or, is delivering to performance indicators taking precedence?  Are we focusing on NI14? 

Contribute to the “post” by clicking the comments tag at the top of the article.