Geographic Information Systems (GIS) integrated with DMS, CRM, GPS/RFID and ERP have proven to deliver immense benefits to organizations like municipal bodies and utilities where work revolves around spatial information. This is what LAVASA - a privately developed lake city spread over 100 square kilometers. in western India, are trying to achieve. HOK-US (Master planners), and LAVASA's promoters are building this city to international standards in spatial  lanning and aim to have the city governance systems supported by a state of the art enterprise GIS.

GIS technology is being harnessed to augment the mammoth design, planning and construction challenges presently underway. The paper describes how LAVASA is putting into place, various best practices in GIS technology from 3DVisualisation, CAD Standards, Data Modeling, GPS updates, Linear Referencing, Map Publishing etc. amidst Indian realities of cost, construction priorities and cultural issues, to ensure that this city gets maximum advantage from an integrated enterprise GIS.

About the Lavasa City Project: LAVASA Corporation Limited has been formed to undertake one of the foremost lifestyle developments in India. Based on New Urbanism principles, and located about 200 km from Mumbai, India, the project is being developed over a sprawling area of approximately 100 square kilometers. The master plan for LAVASA Project called for a modern "hill town" in harmony with nature. This master plan won both the award for excellence 2005, given by the Congress for New Urbanism, USA and the American Society of Landscape Architects Award - 2005.

LAVASA residents will range from upper middle class to affluent families, to a corresponding service provider community which together will create a diversity of neighborhoods. LAVASA will include business parks containing employers such as commercial,  institutional and IT firms plus non-polluting processing firms. Large corporations are located within an hour's distance from LAVASA, and are also expected to be additional sources of employment for residents. Modes of commutation will vary from personal cars to ferry transport to ropeway traffic. Electric public buses are also being considered.

Some of the world's leading names are involved in the project, each with a stake in the synergies provided by the Enterprise GIS. The architectural master planning is the work of HOK, USA. Accenture and AC Nielsen conducted the project feasibility and research. Landor, Hong Kong, is handling branding and identity, while J. Walter Thompson is taking care of the advertising. Public relations consultancy is provided  by IPAN. Hindustan Construction Company - one of the largest private sector construction companies in India, is undertaking all construction activities.

Lavasa's IT/GIS Vision - A Complementary Blend of Technologies: Traditional Information Technology (IT) systems (ERP, CRM, DMS) and Geographical Information System (GIS), are emerging as key enabling forces in helping a wide variety of industries grow and function  efficiently. It is however ironical that in many implementations both IT and GIS still tend to remain as separate systems aimed to meet their own defined objectives. Organizations today who are harnessing the strength of both systems are realizing the tremendous benefits of the blend of both streams of technologies.

IT and GIS both have their own merits, and in LAVASA, an attempt has been made to build on the  positives of both. While traditional IT systems bring with it a wealth of knowledge to handle enterprise wide transactions and industry best practices, GIS provides a fresh and new way of looking at routine 'data'. It is claimed that over 80% of data held in corporate and government databases includes some kind of geospatial characteristics and it is the  meaningful visualization of this data that adds to business intelligence for the organization.

There are various examples in which GIS has complemented IT in the fulfillment of the business goals at LAVASA. Sales reports which were normally being done in MS Excel are now also being mapped  thereby providing spatial insight of sales trends. Users monitoring project progress with MS Projects and MS Excel are also now using GIS to figure out what spatial correlations exist between different construction activities which could be possible causes of delay.

The city has invested in ESRI-based GIS solutions and intends to use Global Positioning Systems (GPS) along with Document Management Systems (DMS), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and Customer Relations Management (CRM) systems. Benefits of spatial logic are being used in the earliest planning and construction phase of the project. In the future, these spatial components will seamlessly transfer to a highly efficient estate management system. The following diagram presents components of the IT vision as envisaged by LAVASA Project. GIS, GPS, Project Management and CRM are currently under implementation while other system components will follow shortly.

LAVASA's GIS acts as a central information hub providing its stakeholders, namely, municipal governance departments, city dwellers, prospects, service providers, developers, and promoters; with handy and robust system to cater to their spatial information  needs.

• The central GIS aids in LAVASA Project decisionmaking by:Providing a central data hub for all spatial information
• Undertaking analytical studies on spatial information like site suitability analysis, etc.
• Providing detailed project monitoring tools to visualize status on the construction site
• Aiding in construction planning and design

Implementing GIS at Lavasa : The first step of the implementation was a detailed user needs assessment during which requirements were documented. Over the first phase of the project, the GIS team in consultation with Project personnel prepared a detailed roadmap report for Project management presenting systems and functionalities for each department (visual shown below).

The initial project phase focused on:

• Capturing user needs and preparing a GIS roadmap for LAVASA
• Design and development of the Geodatabase
• Data creation, conversion, and cleaning to create data layers from different input sources
• Development of customized user interface with features including navigation, layer manager,identify, SQL and spatial query, report generation,thematic map creation, and Document Management Subsequent phases of the project involve developing various aspects of the Enterprise GIS.

Project Monitoring Systems and GIS: LAVASA project managers use MS Project software for undertaking project planning activities and have in place a comprehensive project planning framework called the Master Facilitation Network (MFN) - which is an exhaustive listing of all key activities linking between multiple departments at LAVASA. Project monitoring in city development being highly map oriented users needed to see a map to understand status, LAVASA's GIS was integrated closely with the project planning mechanisms. The GIS team using linear referencing systems, have changed the way users visualize project status. This is helping in coordinating better project execution and benefits the project manager as well as supervisor on the field, thus helping users gain the best of both technologies.

Document Management and GIS: LAVASA's GIS have an inbuilt geospatial document management system, which allows users to link time stamped pictures, videos and regular documents to spatial features. This brings in tremendous value to project managers who can now access documents more easily than before. In the future, LAVASA plan to invest in a formal DMS package in the future and this disciplined document storage will immensely help harness the benefits of both DMS and GIS technologies.

3d Visualization and Survey Data: LAVASA is located on a highly undulating terrain. This requires the IT Enterprise GIS to be 3D enabled. To provide good access to 3D data, users are being  provided ArcGlobe-created 3D model visualization data published using Arc Publisher extensions on their desktops.In addition, this data gives a three dimensional insight to key stakeholders when discussing matters related to terrain. From a marketing perspective, the terrain plays a vital role for customers weighing which parcel to purchase. Since all customers cannot necessarily come to the construction site, the 3D GIS offers an inexpensive and attractive selling option.

LAVASA Project's planning department is using slope maps, aspect maps and digital elevation models (DEMs) for business uses ranging from estimating saleable area, to landfill site identification, security post and cellular tower location selection. Design team has used 3D visualization (such as Autodesk Map and Civil 3D) to analyze possible options of creating tunnel access along hills to shorten commute time to the city. Using the finished road levels (FRL's), the GIS team did cut-fill analysis of road stretches. Such analysis results have increased confidence and faith in GIS amongst traditional CAD users. Visuals below show examples of how today's Enterprise GIS will become a 3D GIS tomorrow.

Parcel Accessibilty Analysis: LAVASA being situated in a highly undulated terrain, created the need for architects to know the cross-section ground profile for every plot in order to design the types of parcel access and the general plan of the house. Parcel Accessibility analysis was completed using modules working on spatial modeling and spatial analyst. The modules provided a functionality which enabled architects to view the cross-section of the parcel and hyperlinked files by just clicking on the parcel map.

Cad GIS Standardization Guidelines: As is traditional in construction organizations in India, all civil engineering design work gets done in Autodesk environment. LAVASA Project's GIS team has created CAD standards which will allow users to continue working in CAD while simultaneously letting central GIS easily update the data. Implementing such standards is not an easy job, and involved endless rounds of discussions with users within and outside the LAVASA Project

Gps and Fleet Management: LAVASA Project has undertaken GPS surveys and is presently contracting with leading GPS providers to procure a product which enables creation of highly  accurate 'As Built' maps. These GPS updates act as a means to confirm that construction happening on the ground is following the 'Good for Construction' layouts used in GIS. Along with survey, the Project plans to use GPS based fleet management solutions. The GIS team is also currently evaluating GPS solutions available to get the most effective system focused towards resolving larger organizational requirements. Future aspects include field crews equipped with mobile GIS/ GPS solutions for real time updates.

Data Model Gap Analysis: The GIS database model has been developed to capture almost every aspect of the city, from all utility service entities (power, water, sewer, OFC,streetlights, stormwater), environment, tourism, and land title information, to name just a few. The data model development has aimed at capturing as much variety in spatial features as possible. In the present phase, the data model development is focusing on increasing attribute information in the captured spatial data. The team realizes the fact that even if the spatial alignment is captured, a large number of 'attributes' stand a chance to be buried under earth while construction is getting done. This led to a structured gap analysis work being carried out with industry standard data models (like ArcFM), to capture and update missing elements in the data model.

Symbology and View Standardization: From the outset, the GIS team realized that engineering data needs to be presented in a visually appealing manner. Secondly, all interfaces to data need to present the same visualization of the data.This prompted the team to select ArcMap as the defacto data visualization interface. For internet services, the mapping service used ArcMap Service on a front end that was built using ArcIMS and Macromedia Flash. For LAN usage especially for presentations, ArcMap was directly used accessing a personal geodatabase that was synchronized with the central SDE database. For offsite field users, data was published from the same database using the Publisher extension. This ensured that irrespective of where the user accessed GIS, the SDE data would be represented similarly. And while it took time to set the symbology for numerous utility services and other layers, once set it is easy to upgrade and maintain the same for the Project website.

Address Standardization: A new city development provides a unique opportunity to have the address database created as per ideal GIS addressing standards. Implementation at LAVASA is based upon US addressing standards,but customized according to Indian realities. A good addressing standard facilitates usage of established geo-coding engines which in turn will help in development of efficient location identification,proper disaster management, utilities operation and maintenance systems.

Environment Monitoring Systems: LAVASA Project has been designed in harmony with its rich natural beauty. One of the objectives of the GIS portion of the project is to assist in hydro-seeding and afforestation strategy, and integrate environment monitoring with the Enterprise GIS. This effort ranges from high-end sensors collecting data from unmanned remote site monitoring stations to more conventional methods of manual data collection. DEM is being used to evaluate suitable sites for windmill installation for power generation.

Sales Monitoring and CRM: A customer relations management (CRM) solution is also incorporated in IT plan of LAVASA. Since 'land' is the 'product' of this CRM, GIS fits in as the natural technology to use in site location, and agents routinely use GIS to aid in parcel / apartment selection.GIS is being used to create visual sales reports indicating which parcels have been sold, which are reserved, etc as seen below. This is another area where traditional IT and GIS are being closely integrated so that spatial business intelligence can be harnessed.

Metadata Management With over 125 feature classes in the SDE database, rapidly changing data, and multiple sources of input data, metadata management and update is a mandatory data tracking activity. The GIS team is using ArcCatalog's metadata update system to keep the metadata up to date. A periodic backup of metadata is taken to ensure that these critical details are preserved.

The Road Ahead Incorporating state-of-the-art technology such as Enterprise GIS into a large project is always associated with challenges. As proven again at LAVASA, ironically the largest challenges are rarely technical in nature. Instead, prime challenges tend to involve gaining support/acceptance from users coming from different domains. It is apparent that once users are able to see direct advantages filtering in by virtue of their work getting simpler, more efficient and more synergistic, these uninitiated users will start embracing spatial technologies.

Entering into next phases of the LAVASA Project, the various stakeholders can now clearly visualize what an Enterprise GIS is capable of creating and sustaining. Still, the enabling systems of data update, maintenance and workflows that go into making this a top tier enterprise-wide application are still to come in. The building blocks are being painstakingly put in place now, brick-by-brick, and this model of a large Enterprise GIS is starting to reap both financial and societal benefits.

Note: This article was first published in the ESRI International User Conference, San Diego, August 7- 11, 2006. Brand names mentioned in the article are copyrights of the respective owners and are used here for illustrative purposes only. They do not constitute an endorsement by the author.

Dr. G. S. Rao Vice President - GIS
LAVASA Corporation Limited, Hincon House, Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg, Vikhroli, (West) Mumbai - 400 083. India