Beca successfully delivers Defence Estate Data Improvement Program

Beca is pleased to announce our successful delivery of the Defence Estate Data Improvement Program for the Department of Defence.

Our work will help enable data on their extensive physical property portfolio to be as up-to-date and accurate as possible and will be used to inform the Base Services Transformation.

A three-year project which combined the talents of our Australian business including our Advisory and Defence and National Security teams, Beca was first awarded the Defence Estate Data Improvement Program in August 2019, with the purpose of validating and remediating an agreed subset of Estate Data records, to ensure they are accurate, complete and reflect existing physical assets.

David Barter, Beca Business Director - Defence and National Security said, "The success of this project is testament to the long-standing and trusting partnership we have with Defence and the combined talents of our experienced team who continuously deliver innovative solutions for our clients".

"The success of this project is testament to the long-standing and trusting partnership we have with Defence and the combined talents of our experienced team" - David Barter, Beca

This program was launched by the Department of Defence’s Security and Estate Group (SEG) to address data management challenges they experienced following the transition from the previous asset management systems to the current platform (GEMS).

Beca initially completed a three-site pilot that included desktop and field validation and remediation, to determine the time and effort required to complete the full project, whilst refining the approach accordingly to ensure we could achieve value for money for Defence. A fourth site was included to further refine the approach to field data remediation, which identified significant efficiencies.

COVID-19 restrictions and the limitations they placed on site visits to Defence bases were another key challenge our team navigated and overcame during the three-year project lifecycle across 75 sites.

Key project outcomes included:

• Dynamic reporting – Providing Defence with a web-based reporting interface that could be updated in close to real-time. This allowed constant progress reporting throughout the project and reduced the risks associated with handling multiple versions of data. This is an ongoing resource that Defence can use as part of their data governance process.
• Data remediation – Verified 96,000, created 45,000 and disposed of 40,000 of assets.
• Exception reporting – Over 400,000 recommendations for remediation provided.
• ERIM review – Four key focus areas and recommendations were made and submitted to Defence for consideration.
• Land management – From a base of 2,000 records we were able to create a further 18,000 records, including shape files for all sites.

More information about Beca’s diverse Defence and National Security capability can be viewed here.