Continuous improvement of geographic data production processes: Approach and results of a case study

The quality of products - in this case the quality of geographic data representing the facilities of utility companies - depends not only on the used sources and methods of data acquisition but is also significantly affected by the processes applied for the production of geographic data. Study and optimization of production processes are important topics in manufacturing for many years and are widely known as Process-Based Quality Management. This means that besides the quality of the final product, the quality of the production processes is also of high interest. In this paper an overview concerning a three years study is given, in which a methodology for a continuous improvement of the geographic information production processes has been developed and applied. Also key figures to describe the quality of products and processes have been suggested. These key figures have been analyzed over a longer period. The overall objectives of this procedure are to reveal the quality of products and processes, to detect deficiencies and weaknesses of the processes and to prove the effectivity of changes of the processes.