Geo-referencing of
Client Information

SiQ was involved in a couple of projects where the aim was to assist clients with the mapping and capturing of the spatial location and other information of their customers. Two of these projects that SiQ was involved in were for Sasol Nitro and Pioneer. The main purpose of the project for Pioneer was to provide the farm location, customer and farm information, potential crop fields, the GPS coordinates of the crop field centre and the crop field area in hectares.

For Sasol Nitro the aim of the project was to capture the location of all the customers, together with other vital information, such as the customer details, farm name and whether there were any fertilizer delivery points currently on the farm, details on the delivery points, tank capacity, etc.

SiQ developed a tool within the ArcGIS environment to allow end-users without GIS knowledge, to efficiently capture the base data. The tool was provided to all users that have been designated to capture data.

The base data that was captured in the field, was received by SiQ's GIS Specialist on a regular basis. The data was then cleaned, checked and the necessary quality control procedures applied to ensure data of the highest quality. The cleaned data was stored in a central location (ftp site).

The purpose of the data capturing was not just to capture the data and then end the process. The aim was to integrate the data with other datasets, such as sales figures, in order to generate information that could assist the client with making business decisions. In this lies the true value of GIS data.

For Pioneer maps of the farms of all the customers were generated and delivered to the dealers which proved to be a very useful tool. Dealers utilised these maps to determine future sales and to perform product calculations on each of its customers' farms.