FME for Smallworld to Esri Water Data Model – Migration and Consolidation

Tensing International BV was contracted to assist the data migration for two water companies in the Netherlands. The water companies Groningen and Drenthe are the main water suppliers in the north of the Netherlands. The companies managed their assets via NRM, a Smallworld based solution, in which each company used a different data schema for their assets. Both organizations decided to migrate their assets to a common structure using the ArcGIS for Water Utilities Data Model template, a first in the Netherlands, since at the time no other water company was using this off-the-shelf template provided by Esri. Therefore, in addition to migration, a schema consolidation effort would be required. Tensing International BV was awarded the tender for this data migration and consolidation effort by proposing an innovative approach using FME with a Scrum Agile methodology guiding the project execution. Through a series of interviews with stakeholders and management, a clear and concrete Scrum methodology was established to define a controlled deliverance. This methodology included clear definitions of deliverables and grouping of the assets datasets. This is where FME became a major part of the project working according the grouped datasets to deliver migrated data into the new application in a controlled and constant way. FME was used in all aspects of the data migration and validation workflows, from the beginning while reading the Smallworld data, to evaluating and validating the input datasets, then creating reports on the data validity, concluding with automatic notifications to key stakeholders about the migrated data delivery via FME Server. FME’s robust and flexible platform made it possible to not only provide timely delivery for each Sprint cycle, but also adapt to changing project requirements as they arose. In this presentation, a detailed overview of FME’s role in the data migration and consolidation effort will be presented, along with examples of creative FME usage.