Data & Analytics cases

Data driven inspections

Domain: Data Science

Client: Public sector in the Netherlands

Subject: Data driven inspections

One of the areas the agency is responsible for is the security of the digital infrastructure, cables and pipes, which are essential for social- and economic activities. They do this by planned inspections based on the ‘Network and Information Systems Security Act’. Inspections are aimed at the risk management process and taking appropriate control measures to prevent damage to current underground networks.

"Data driven inspections"

The project

The agency inspects randomly hundreds of diggings on yearly basis with inspectors throughout the whole country. The current tooling was outdated and not user friendly: inspectors could not use the tool in the field and therefore did not have all the necessary information available during the inspection. Making relatively small changes to the tool was also a time-consuming process, something inspectors therefore rather avoided and were not keen on.

Throughout the years, the number of inspectors is declining while the number of diggings is increasing. This means the agency must carefully plan the total number of inspection hours based on a data-driven approach.

How we handled this

We set up a POC to see if we could make a tool which served all the needs of the inspectors. What we did briefly:

Get all the requirements and needs of the inspectors during the inspection
Predictive model that scores and classifies each current digging activity (low risk- medium risk – high risk of damage)
A script/process to extract all current digging activities, select- transform and manipulate relevant data, include predictive model scores
Host the application on an external R-Shiny server and make it available to the inspectors

Results

A web based application with current up-to-date information on digging activities
A web based application which can be used on different devices (mobile, laptop, tablet): inspectors have the option to turn on GPS and immediately see all digging activities in the area
Inspections based on (data-driven) risk classification
A visual representation of all the current digging activities on a map including alle relevant information for each digging activity

The result: A visual representation of all the current digging activities on a map

Conclusion

The inspectors were really pleased with the result of the POC. To this day, the application is still being used during the inspections in the field, making sure the inspectors always have alle relevant information available with a couple of clicks on their mobile device.

Do you have any questions?

Your contact person

Arjan Schoe
Director Data & Analytics

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