Case

Knowit + the Norwegian Mapping Authority = digital transformation

The Norwegian Mapping Authority is a public agency steeped in tradition and a significant digital player, but is not immune to the demands for change and digitization. Knowit has assisted the Norwegian Mapping Authority in its efforts to become a modern digital organization and succeed in its work with digitalization and business development. Knowit is contributing at all levels – from the strategic and tactical level to the operational level, within both organizational and technological aspects.

Challenge

The need for digital transformation arises at the interface between disruptive forces, such as radically new demands from users and changing competition, and the opportunities created by implementing new technology. The Norwegian Mapping Authority, as the national geodata coordinator, is expected to be a driving force in leading Norway toward achieving the goal of becoming a leader in the use of geographic information. New technology makes it possible for the Norwegian Mapping Authority to modernize the geographical infrastructure, which enables an increased degree of digitalization and improved quality in the collection and processing of location-based information. In this way, the authority will be developing one of the community's most important digital building blocks, for the benefit of various value chains and administrative organizations.

Solution

Digital transformation affects culture, organization, and architecture across the entire authority. Through a multidisciplinary advisory team, Knowit has assisted the Norwegian Mapping Authority in driving its digital transformation, with a basis in modern IT architecture and a focus on strategic and operational tools that include:

  • Uncovering technological possibilities.
  • Proposing shared infrastructure, new ways of working, and structures for organization.
  • Introducing tools for implementation of digital processes.
  • Introducing platforms that may be needed in digital transformation processes.
  • Facilitating flexible product development.

 

Image: Hanna Hauan, the Norwegian Mapping Authority

In 2020, the Norwegian Mapping Authority chose Knowit as a partner in its digital transformation journey within two main work areas:

  • Strategic and tactical consultancy.
  • Reinforcement of development capacity.

 

In close collaboration with the customer, Knowit's strategic and tactical advisors have contributed to establishing a modern product development organization with clearly defined product areas and product teams supplemented with methods for team and change management, to achieve the desired results. The following deliveries have been made by Knowit’s resources: 

  • Creation of a vision for digitalization in the following areas: technical direction and strategy, service strategy, business architecture, technology mapping, and establishment of a collaboration model for digital product development.
  • Competence development regarding agile methodology, both within and around the product development organization.
  • Assistance in team organization and better support for product development.

New technology

Within the area “Strengthening development capacity,” Knowit has contributed with the expertise and capacity necessary to test out the digital twin concept, build a cloud platform and a data platform, and staff several product teams. Knowit has had a total of more than 40 employees working for the client.

One of the most exciting aspects has been working with a shared data platform, to help streamline processes for collecting, processing, and sharing data in the Norwegian Mapping Authority. This results in shorter lead times in production and helps the Norwegian Mapping Authority perform technical improvements to existing production routes. This has also opened the door to the public cloud for the Norwegian Mapping Authority, and facilitated more insight-based and data-centric work. The authority shifted to the cloud by establishing a hybrid cloud solution in Google Cloud Platform (GCP), using Google Anthos. The solution will support product teams with storage of both structured and unstructured data, and contribute with a pipeline for data transformations, a data catalogue, and analysis capabilities.

Results

The Norwegian Mapping Authority and Knowit operationalized the virtual product development organization to realize the modernization. In addition to new development, the product organization has also initiated migration of older solutions belonging to the Property Division and the Maritime Division. The product teams delivered good results in regard to:

  • Laying the groundworks for holistic digital product development across departments.
  • Digital strategy and planning for implementation of transformation.
  • New and improved National Classification Basis (Nasjonal Inndelingsbase/NIBAS) - Property Division/IT.
  • Creation of a new National Register of Aviation Obstacles (Nasjonalt register over luftfartshindre/NRL).
  • Improvement of the Digital Central Archive (Digitalt Sentralarkiv; aerial images only).
  • A joint data platform team for the Norwegian Mapping Authority.
  • Cloud services and the Norwegian Mapping Authority's Infrastructure Platform (Statens Kartverks Infrastruktur Plattform/SKIP).
  • Concept testing of the digital twin.
  • Digitalization and improvement of nautical chart production; Project Nautilus 2022.

 

Image: Per Anders Bjørklund, the Norwegian Mapping Authority

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Kai Eidissen
Director of Business Development
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