Best Practices for Mission Applications

USARCENT Data Conversion and Management Effort

—John Panhorst, Spatial Engineering, Inc.

In August 2008, US Army Central (USARCENT) began the Data Conversion and Management Effort to catalog and convert data created/collected in support of Title 10 - Real Property Asset Management, environmental data tracking, and liability risk management. The purpose of this project was to deliver USARCENT a complete picture of their data stores as they exist today and identify gaps as they relate to future mission requirements. The initial focus was on cataloging of thousands of files, conversion of existing data into a geospatial format, and the installation of an enterprise data management system (EDMS) to allow USARCENT Engineers efficient access to the portion of its data that had been processed. Based upon an initial gap analysis performed at the end of Phase 1, it was discovered that hundreds of sites within the USARCENT AOR lack authoritative, reliable data and required additional data collection. To fill this gap, the project was modified to capture features from satellite imagery, augment extracted data with the existing data, and conduct on-the-ground data collection/verification of real property assets at selected sites. Combined, these efforts would provide a high degree of confidence in addressing long-standing deficiencies with real property accountability in addition to timely visibility of the collected and aggregated data.