Quality Assurance/Quality Control

In any data development effort, there is a need to establish and carry out Quality Assurance and Quality Control services as part of the development process. Assuming the vendor is working towards a specification that was established prior to the procurement effort, the QA/QC process should ensure that at a minimum the data product meet those specifications. Checking data for completeness assures not only that it covers the entire geographic region of the project, but that the data is reasonable when overlaid on established base mapping. Data should be checked to ensure that the attributes assigned to features meet the requirements of the specifications and that they fall within the range of acceptable values for the feature in question. Topology of the data should be checked to confirm the connectivity of elements that are expected to be connected. These types of checks can often be performed automatically.

Often this is as far as a vendor goes in performing checking of data. However Spatial Systems has established a system of checking a selected random percentage of features utilizing independent reviewers to ensure that the process being used in the data development effort is consistent and produces an acceptable product. This QA process is in initiated when the project is started so that systemic issues or problems with an individual conversion specialist can be identified as early in the process as possible and remedial action taken.

Whether you are acquiring remotely sensed data (aerial photography or LiDAR data), having data collected in the field, or having existing hardcopy records converted for use in your GIS, you can be certain that the data that Spatial Systems will deliver will meet the project specifications and your needs.