Data Solutions

ENTRUST’s data services experts specialize in delivering solutions that help our clients digitally locate, identify, analyze, and interactively connect the data relating to their assets and customers. We help them use a number of different processes, tools, and modeling systems so they can leverage all of the information necessary for better decision support in the areas of risk assessment, regulatory compliance, and operations.

To achieve these goals, we offer our clients data solutions and services in the areas of data management, analysis and insights, system consulting, solution development and deployment, technical systems consulting, and more. Our team delivers quality and value on every data solutions project, from the simplest to the most complex.

Let ENTRUST deliver your data solutions so you can focus on your business.

SERVICES

Document Digitization

Most companies have large volumes of paper documents that contain information required for critical operational processes. Paper documents have limited access and introduce inefficiency and errors into the organization’s work processes. ENTRUST’s data solutions experts provide our clients with digitization services. We support digitization and integration of historic and current paper documents into a client’s data system. First, we conduct a detailed inventory of the available records and estimate the cost of digitizing these documents and the impact on our clients’ operations. When the cost of digitizing the documents is justified by the value gained, we develop a plan to digitize the relevant documents. Depending upon the requirements, digitizing the documents can be done by scanning them into a digital format, tagging them with relevant information, and linking them to the appropriate assets. If the requirements demand a higher level of integration, the source documents can be manually reentered as digital data. Both processes allow our clients to query, search, run reports, or otherwise use the data to better support their operations.

Data Cleansing and Verification

Reliable and accurate data is the foundation of an effective data system. Our expert consultants have years of experience working within data systems to cleanse them of errors, duplication, or other discrepancies. When engaging in these initiatives, we identify and quantify the errors and evaluate the potential cause and the severity of the error. After locating the gaps in quality, we evaluate the costs and impact of various correction techniques from low cost/low accuracy automated algorithms to high cost/high accuracy manual fixes. The desired accuracy and cost of the corrections drive the development of an overall data enhancement plan prioritizing data cleansing with respect to the severity of the data. ENTRUST then supports the execution of the data enhancement programs by managing activities, performing corrections, and reviewing the enhanced data.

Data Maintenance

One of the key requirements to obtaining high value from modern decision support and analytics applications is high quality data. While starting with high quality data is one factor in this value chain, maintaining data quality through a system is equally important. If the processes involved in making changes introduce errors or allow data to become stale, high quality data quickly deteriorates. Our team of experts assists our clients by developing workflows and processes ensuring that data quality is maintained in a timely manner. This process-oriented work supports our other data management services and assists our clients in maintaining high quality input data supplied to analytics applications and asset management systems.

Mobile Data Solutions

Collecting data directly on a well-designed mobile platform can improve efficiency and reduce errors, thereby saving money and improving safety. We support our clients by developing and deploying effective digital data entry solutions that smoothly integrate and augment their data collection processes. ENTRUST provides comprehensive services for all phases of mobile deployment including needs assessment, solution design, workflow adjustment and solution deployment, testing, and user training.

Imagery Analysis and Information Extraction

Readily available imagery, such as aerial photographs, often contain valuable data that can help our clients make critical decisions to improve the efficiency and safety of their business. Our expert data solutions team uses image recognition algorithms to extract meaningful information from imagery for object identification and classification. Object identification is done by extracting data, such as building polygons or paved and unpaved areas, from aerial imagery. While image/object classification is accomplished by training machine learning algorithms to recognize qualities such as pavement or vegetation from available imagery. These services evaluate the information available, determine if it is useful, and turn aerial imagery into a comprehensive data set that our clients can use to improve efficiency, increase safety, and meet regulatory requirements.

Business District Identification

ENTRUST has developed a library of analysis modules to help operators analyze their business districts in a data-driven and repeatable manner. ENTRUST works closely with operators to tailor the analysis modules to their individual needs and service territories so our clients can apply the results to their leak survey requirements, risk assessment cycles, and system planning. We work closely with stakeholders throughout our client’s business to ensure that any available information data sources, both internally and publicly curated, are leveraged for a thorough and repeatable analysis. We apply our deep regulatory understanding and our technical data systems team to deploy processes to spatially analyze business districts. The analysis process accommodates both federal regulatory requirements (CFR 192.723 and §192.723–Subpart M GPTC) as well as state requirements.

HCA, MCA & Class Location Identification

ENTRUST has developed geospatial analysis tools to identify Class Location, High Consequence Areas (HCA), and Moderate Consequence Areas (MCA) using spatial data according to 49 CFR Part 192. ENTRUST analyzes and maintains our clients’ HCA, MCA, and class location designations on a periodic basis. Additionally, ENTRUST can implement the analysis module within the operator’s GIS system allowing the module to be run on an as-needed basis, while maintaining a historic record of the previous analyses as conditions change.

Custom Spatial Analysis

ENTRUST partners with our utility clients by leveraging the expertise of the entire team to define and solve a business problem for our clients using custom spatial analysis. First, we review the business problem with our client and clearly define the problem we are working to solve. Then we identify the information available to solve the business problem and establish an analysis workflow that will deliver high quality information that will be used to solve the business problem. We test and refine the workflow until the quality outcome criteria are met. This service delivers quality information to our utility clients that enable them to make informed decisions to solve real business problems.

ILI Data Analysis

At ENTRUST, we provide services to help utilities manage their ILI programs. We leverage our extensive ILI subject matter expertise and our spatial data proficiency to integrate historic ILI data into the operator’s GIS. We align ILI data within our client’s GIS and analyze the results using other data sources, such as asset information and adjacent environmental features. We monitor and evaluate trends over time from one ILI run to the next. We assist our clients with overall assessment planning, managing, and tracking the outcome of identified critical anomalies and anomaly mitigation.

Hydraulic System Modeling – Capacity Planning & Forecasting

ENTRUST uses GIS and other data sources to evaluate the impact of population changes, economic trends, and cultural evolution on energy systems for our clients. This analysis gives the utility a close look at the effect of changing customer demand on the existing system to identify potential weaknesses and where mitigation may be necessary. Our team of experts provide our clients with operational decision support and assists with contingency planning. As a part of this service, ENTRUST builds a system model, statistically analyzes and applies the identified loads to the model, and assesses the implications for impacted areas. We can help our clients develop a 10-year plan that outlines anticipated changes in demand, potential impacts on the system, and future system improvements to respond to the identified impacts.

Data System Strategic Planning & Road Mapping

ENTRUST’s expert team works closely with our clients to identify long-term goals, gaps in their current system, and a roadmap forward for the next two, five, and ten years. We help our clients create a system-wide roadmap and assist business leaders to dive deeper into specific initiatives such as data improvement or system migration. Our team helps our clients answer those critical questions to plan for the future.

Data Integration

ENTRUST assists our clients by evaluating disconnected and potentially duplicated data sources such as excel spreadsheets, personal databases, or stand-alone enterprise data repositories and strategically integrating them into the enterprise data systems. The steps we take to achieve this include data source evaluation, identification of integration options, integration planning, and establishing updated workflows minimizing impacts to end users. We then execute and support the integration of the data sources through the implementation life cycle, including interface development, testing, documentation, and change management to deliver a comprehensive solution to our clients.

Data Model Migration

ENTRUST’s Data Solutions team helps operators manage the evolution of their spatial data systems through the strategic planning and execution migrating data models supporting the adoption advancing technology. ENTRUST engages in system evaluation, gap analysis, data mapping, and migration execution and testing. We bring our industry experience and best practices in data transfer and adapting new workflows to the changed system. ENTRUST partners with the operator in all phases, including planning and strategizing, documentation development, task automation, and testing.

Utility Network ad APR Preparedness & Roadmapping

Utility Network and ArcGIS Pipeline Referencing (APR) are ESRI-specific solutions changing the way utilities interact with their spatial asset data. Deployments are a big change, impacting the business users such as GIS data owners, operations staff, integrity managers, and IT teams responsible for managing and deploying the technology. ENTRUST provides support planning and deploying the solutions, including gap analysis, data model readiness evaluation, data model translation, road mapping, pilot programs, implementation, and testing.

Workflow Integration and Analysis Modules

ENTRUST experts work with our clients to evaluate current data workflows and propose improvements to increase efficiency, accuracy, and value of their GIS and overall data systems. ENTRUST dives in with our clients’ stakeholders and end users to streamline workflows through automating repetitive tasks, linking data sources to eliminate potential duplication errors, and automate analysis workflows to increase overall efficiency and consistency.

IT Project Management

ENTRUST’s professional project managers have experience planning and managing upgrades and deploying new architecture supporting IT departments seeking additional resources to integrate with and augment their current staff on key projects. ENTRUST’s project managers have delivered customer projects such as enterprise upgrades to their Esri environment, server migrations, and other system changes. ENTRUST’s project managers work seamlessly within our clients’ organizations to plan, research, coordinate, track, manage project risk, and provide comprehensive communication to all stakeholders using industry best practices.

GIS Programming & Enhancement

Every utility’s GIS is unique due to operating practices and the company’s overall data ecosystem. ENTRUST’s skilled programmers work with our clients to expand the value of their GIS by implementing custom integrations, developing analysis tools, and analyzing and improving data quality. ENTRUST’s GIS professionals can audit the GIS to identify data and/or process gaps, recommend enhancements, and plan long-term improvement to maximize data value. ENTRUST assists our clients by building custom analysis tools supporting business decisions. Our team is also experienced in establishing metrics and processes to measure data improvement and value, evaluating the impact of missing, inaccurate, and out of date data, and assessing the impact of proposed data improvement.

Custom Analysis Tools

ENTRUST works closely with our clients to identify a set of business problems, evaluate the information that’s available to help solve that business problem, build a repeatable process or tool to address the problem, test and verify the tool, and then deploy the solution. We can host these solutions and provide them to our clients as a service or we can install the solution as a module on their system to use as needed by their business processes. Our expert team typically works within databases and geospatial systems to combine spatial and nonspatial data into an analytical solution that helps our clients run their businesses more efficiently and with a higher degree of safety.

Risk Assessment

ENTRUST Solutions Group supports our clients in understanding and mitigating the risks posed to their system by a variety of threats. We work closely with operators to identify threats, establish mechanisms for quantifying the likelihood of the threat creating an adverse event, and then measuring the potential impact of that threat to the system and surroundings. We support operators throughout all aspects of their risk management program, from identifying and managing data sources to calculating the risk and the potential impact from mitigation. Additionally, we can implement a data driven spatial risk model supporting the analysis of threat categories covered by 49 CFR 192 and 195. Our engineers can also extend the analysis by quantifying categories that are outside of federal code to include those additional threats that are of concern to our clients.

Assessment Data Management

ENTRUST experts take a holistic approach to assessment data management, helping clients manage their pipeline assessments from start to finish while integrating the resulting data with their GIS. ENTRUST provides services to help capture, integrate, and manage assessment data within a spatial framework for many assessment types including external corrosion, internal corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and in-line inspections among others. ENTRUST aligns and analyzes the assessment data to provide severity classification along our client’s pipelines, enabling them to leverage the data over the life cycle of the related assets. ENTRUST can also deliver visualization services in a variety of options from interactive spatial dashboards to aerial maps.

Data Improvement Program Management

ENTRUST helps our clients plan long-term activities around data improvement initiatives that involve high volumes of data throughout the organization. ENTRUST begins this process by identifying existing data gaps that need to be resolved in order to improve business processes. We then evaluate the criticality of that data gap and various options for resolving the data gap. Data may be enhanced by correcting errors, supplementing incomplete data, or implementing new integrations to keep time sensitive data up to date. This process could include source record review or field data collection such as digging up the pipe to identify the pipe’s material. Once this is complete, our team of experts help prioritize the initiatives or activities within a data improvement program so clients can get the most value based upon the amount of effort required or resources available within a given time period. The duration of the program could be five, ten, or fifteen years to achieve various objectives of improving data quality and might be done in conjunction with other projects or services for efficiency.

ENTRUST also builds tracking and reporting mechanisms that measure the program’s success so clients can adjust and tailor their efforts to the ongoing program’s effectiveness. By monitoring the program, our clients are able to ensure that data enhancement programs continue to deliver value.

Dashboards and Reporting

At ENTRUST, creating dashboards and reports involves more than just displaying data for our clients. It requires an intimate understanding of how the data relates to the underlying health of the business and preparing it in a manner that readily exposes those insights to the business users. Our team helps our clients identify key performance indicators (KPIs) and, by monitoring both leading and lagging indicators, adjust to changing conditions early and avoid major problems.

The key to building dashboards and reports that deliver value is in understanding what data is most indicative of business health and how to present it in such a manner that it is readily digested. Dashboards and reports are a critical element in the business decision support process. By delivering timely data, presented in an easily understood format, ENTRUST helps our customers make the best decisions for their business and communicate with their various stakeholders.

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