Datacom improves operational efficiencies

The Australian Department of the Environment designs and implements the Australian Government’s policies and programmes to protect and conserve the environment, water and heritage and promote climate action. The environmental framework is being delivered under four pillars: clean air, clean land, clean water and national heritage.

The Department manages a range of business processes associated with the administration of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the Sea Dumping Act and other environmental legislation.

The Challenge

The Department's primary requirement was the overall improvement of its internal operational efficiencies to support the processing of numerous external applications and referrals.

The Department identified five key areas that it believed needed improvement and decided that an IT architectural study would not only validate current thinking but also identify improvements in the following areas:

• Business processing, with greater information sharing between the different business processes
• Centralised client management sharing between business areas
• Better business intelligence and reporting using data with improved integrity
• Support for emerging cost recovery areas, including incorporation of a payment gateway and integration with financial management system
• Integration and availability of geospatial information to enhance the visualisation of areas subject to assessment and approval.

The Solution

As its primary IT outsourcing provider, Datacom had established a close working relationship with the Department of the Environment over the previous three years. When the Department identified the need to improve its internal processes, they engaged Datacom to undertake an architectural study of the proposed Environmental Impact Assessment System.

Datacom and the Department had previously identified Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a key component in future state architecture. With this at its core, the study was underpinned by The Open Group Architecture Framework and included the following IT improvements:

• Value Chain detail of the main business functions and their comprised actions.
• Domain Model of the relationships between staff, clients, legislation and application specifics such as location and condition.
• Architecture Matrix mapping of business processes, stakeholders, systems and identified logical solution components to the functions and actions of the value chain.
• A trade-off analysis to determine the software components best suited to provide the physical implementation of the identified logical components.
• Implementation roadmap that addressed the known technology gaps in a manner that was in line with the previously captured EACD ‘pain points’.

Results

The Department now has an agreed and articulated target architecture that allows it to more easily plan and allocate resources and funding. The target architecture has been set up to better support data sharing across business processes with a centralised approach to client management. This will create a noticeable difference to operational efficiencies within the Department.

Throughout the project, Datacom worked collaboratively with the  executive team and other relevant internal departments to develop the architectural study and provide a clear and concise report to the Executive Steering committee.

By using a proven framework and using both previous experience and the needs of the customer to tailor it, Datacom’s report was relevant to the specific requirements for the Environmental Impact Assessment Process and met the key criteria for delivery. Datacom consistently met agreed timeframes and delivered a report which was very well received by the Department. As a result, Datacom is now working on a number of additional spin off projects.