Make Your Data Work For You
Applied Data Management
What is Applied Data Management?
Collecting, storing, and managing the data upon which your business depends can be challenging. Data management is an increasingly important requirement in our digital world. Data are vital assets for businesses and organizations. Data management is the process of collecting, storing, organizing, maintaining, and using data effectively throughout an organization. Good data management involves data governance, data validation, and consistent data collection and storage policies.
But developing and implementing comprehensive data management strategies is time-consuming. Applied Data Management (ADM) is the practice of applying the principles of data management to real-world situations, finding practical solutions to real-world problems that can be implemented quickly for immediate results.
ADM looks at key chokepoints in your data management processes and identifies practical and targeted strategies to streamline and improve access to data.
Why Do I Need Applied Data Management?
If you have a project or key business process that requires data, it will likely benefit from ADM. Today, we have tools to collect virtually unlimited amounts of data, but we often lack the ability to filter that data to make it work for us. That’s where ADM comes in. ADM finds practical solutions to streamline how we collect, organize, store, protect, and use data.
Using data management and data analytics tools, ADM explores ways to make data collection more efficient and trustworthy while also building tools that can visualize the data in a variety of ways to answer critical business questions and improve decision-making.
Each project will have unique challenges and characteristics. KJ’s ADM team works with clients to identify gaps in the data stream and find ways to close them. Intuitive GIS apps can speed up data collection, while integrated data dashboards can provide real-time updates on the status of your project.
Imagine having real-time, trusted data to quickly answer key project or business questions. Pulling from multiple data sources, our team can improve your data management and visualize your data in ways that make sense to your team, allowing you to quickly understand the health of your project and where action needs to be taken in just a few clicks. Everything we do today requires access to our data to understand challenges, provide insight into processes, and improve decision-making. ADM can quickly find ways to get you the data you need.
ADM finds ways to improve efficiency, accuracy, and access to your data for immediate results. With less time spent on data entry and rework, your team can focus on more profitable ventures. Small interventions such as tweaking a form or developing a data collection app can yield exponential savings in labor and accuracy.
If your team is taking a paper checklist into the field and filling it out by hand, that data later must be entered into your system. Handling data twice increases the risk of miskeys and errors and adds extra steps to your process. Some possible solutions include:
Mobile Data Collection Apps: Mobile data collection apps and digital forms can be used to collect data in real-time using mobile devices. By creating custom data collection forms for use in the field, we can reduce the amount of time your team spends on data collection and data entry. Data collected through these apps can be stored locally on the device or in the cloud, and can be pulled into dashboards for near-immediate data analysis.
GPS-enabled Tracking: Using GPS, monitoring locations and assets can be quickly identified in the field. Combined with Mobile Data Collection Apps, GPS can improve speed up workflows and improve data accuracy.
Cloud-based Data Management Platforms: Secure and scalable, cloud-based data management platforms can be used to store and manage field data. No matter the size of your business, cloud-based data management platforms can store large amounts of data without requiring investment in on-site infrastructure. Users can access data from anywhere with an internet connection and collaborate on data projects with team members.
Automated Data Collection Sensors: Automated data collection sensors and tools can be used to collect data without manual intervention. Data can be collected from sensors, cameras, or other devices in the field without requiring manual effort, saving on labor costs and improving data accuracy.
RFID Tagging: RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags are often used to track inventory and spare parts, but tags can be attached to field equipment, facility assets, and tools to streamline operations and maintenance activities. Staff can quickly scan tags to correctly identify required tools or toolkits for performing work, identify assets when performing rounds, or review keep steps to performing maintenance tasks.
Data For All: Democratize Your Data
What does it mean to democratize your data? Democratizing your data can yield improvements across your organization from the shop floor to broad environmental initiatives. All your programs can be tied together, reducing communication and operational silos. Making your data accessible to all relevant stakeholders can initiate a cultural shift that improves efficiency and results for all your business units and workflows.
Data for All means making data tools, knowledge, and insights accessible and useable across your organization. It means empowering people across your organization to use data to make informed decisions, solve problems, and improve solutions.
People from a wide variety of backgrounds and with differing levels of data science familiarity should be able to readily understand and use data insights in their work.
Achieving Data for All means building a collaborative and data-driven culture that involves all stakeholders in decision-making that relies on relevant data. Data must be accessible so that reliable decisions can be made at the lowest possible level. Using dynamic data dashboards can help communicate the right data to the people who need it. Using data visualization and tools that are easy to use and understand, even without technical expertise, is at the heart of data democratization.
Applied Data Management makes your data readily available and easy to use. A data dashboard makes it easy to track, analyze, and visualize your data.
Data dashboards can focus on a single project or process to yield local insights, or they can be used to bring together relevant data from several projects or workgroups to let you measure and manage the projects and performance indicators that matter to you. With a few clicks, you can quickly navigate to the data you need to manage your project or your business. Working with our ADM specialists, you can develop dashboards that are tailored to your needs.
Reviewing your data collection needs and processes can reveal multiple opportunities for improvement while also making your data safer and more reliable. Our Data Managers work with clients to develop streamlined solutions and meaningful dashboards that tell the right story. Selecting data for collection and visualization is the key to accessing the decision-making power of dashboards. KJ’s team is attuned to your culture, your goals, and your long-term success.
Dashboards also protect your data. By drawing from multiple data sources, the dashboards can show relevant information and provide interactivity without users directly touching the data source, which can be securely stored elsewhere. Everyone who needs to see the data has access, but without risk to data integrity. Dashboards give you customized, interactive tools that show you what you need to see to keep your business running efficiently without risking your source data.
Meet Our ADM Team
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Joshua Sales, RG
Applied Data Management Lead
Joshua Sales is a Registered Geologist with experience in remedial investigations, feasibility studies, GPS/GIS, corrective measures studies, groundwater modeling, groundwater remediation, and engineering design. Josh established a system for field collection of Global Positioning System (GPS) data, data acquisition and manipulation, training, and cost estimation. His experience in ArcView Geographical Information System (GIS) includes importing foreign file formats, design and layout of projects, data projections, and publishing figures.
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Katie Engberg
Data Manager
Katie Engberg is a Data Manager with experience in data management, data analysis and visualization, remedial investigation, pre-design investigation, remedial action design and implementation, and ecological risk assessment. Her primary responsibilities are data management, analysis, and visualization to improve project outcomes.
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Jennifer Joern
GIS Specialist and Field Data Collection
Jennifer Joern is a specialist in GIS and field data collection with over 10 years of experience conducting advanced data evaluation and visualization using GIS and other software platforms. She excels in analyzing complex datasets and presenting results in easily interpreted visual formats for a variety of audiences. Jen creates and customizes online field data collection interfaces using ArcGIS, and streamlines data entry, database storage, and export into report-ready formats.
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Mary Ellen McCarty
GIS Specialist and Field Data Collection
Mary Ellen McCarty is a Geographic Information Systems Analyst and Water Resources Planner. With 17 years of experience in geospatial database design, reproducible spatial analytics, project management, online mapping, print cartography and strategic planning, she provides efficient geospatial data management in the ArcGIS Enterprise environment, for use across GIS software platforms. With experience in ArcSDE administration, she builds multiuser editing environments for seamless data collection in both mobile and desktop applications.
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Janice Sloan
Data Manager
Janice Sloan coordinates and leads the data management team at KJ. She manages analytical and field data using Structured Query Language (SQL) databases for various clients and leads the synchronization and merger of databases and historical data. She also coordinates access to databases for third-party consultants. She routinely develops specialized database export formats/reports for project-specific needs using SQL, R, M query, HTML, DAX, Visual Basic (VB), and VB.net.
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Maya Key, PE
Data Manager
Maya Key, PE is a Professional Engineer experienced in water planning; regulatory compliance; industrial wastewater treatment; and site investigations and remediation. She has worked on Spill Pollution, Control, and Countermeasure Plans, Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plans, Phase I ESAs, NPDES permits, and support for land application programs. She is proficient in Excel, ArcMap GIS software, and EQuIS database software, as well as ChemStat and ProUCL statistical software.
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