Digital mapping specialist Esri Ireland has said its system has delivered savings of up to €5.8 million to broadband provider Fibrus as it accelerates broadband rollout in Northern Ireland.
Fibrus is providing connectivity to 85,000 rural homes and businesses under the Northern Ireland Executive's initiative, Project Stratum.
Using its ArcGIS technology, Esri Ireland said it designed integrated solutions to streamline processes throughout the planning, constructing, and maintaining of fibre networks.
It said the technology calculates precise costs for new infrastructure plans and optimises the number of potential customers in project areas.
This has resulted in time savings of 500 hours per week for Fibrus, its contractors, and subcontractors, it said.
"Wherever they’re working, over 1,000 field operatives can view plans on digital maps, collect survey data, record cable and pole installations, and flag any issues," the company explained.
"Data is shared in real-time to a central dashboard which is improving workflows and increasing collaboration.
"This has also improved data accuracy, streamlined time-intensive tasks, and decreased misinformation-related issues, enabling Fibrus to meet targets significantly faster," it added.
Riain Garcia, Senior Manager, GIS at Fibrus, said Esri’s system provides greater visibility of what is happening on the ground.
"We have already seen significant cost savings by using ArcGIS to reduce build revisits and by using dashboards to track progress instead of manual processes.
"I don’t think we would have accomplished the exceptionally high number of connections needed for Project Stratum as fast as we did without ArcGIS," he added.
