Dial Before You Dig (DBYD) Nextgen Digital Transformation

(GIF: Phillips Group)

Dial Before You Dig (DBYD), the service that protects $388 billion of Australia’s critical infrastructure, has completed an ambitious digital transformation of its delivery platform – with the successful launch of its ‘DBYD NextGen referral service’.

The new DBYD NextGen platform – which was delivered in July 2021 in partnership with Esri Australia and Deloitte Consulting – has already processed almost three million referrals and surpassed 90,000 users.
DBYD CEO Stuart Burdack said the new system provides Australians with access to a safer and faster DBYD service, as well as a world-class digital experience.

“DBYD is a critical service relied on every day by thousands of power, telco, gas, water construction firms and government organisations to keep the country running and workers and the community safe,” said Mr Burdack.
“While we’ve delivered a reliable service for more than 20 years, we’ve also kept pace with advances in technology to ensure we can provide the best possible protection for workers and infrastructure.

“The DBYD NextGen referral service extends the value of our existing offering, by adopting an Australian-developed technology solution to provide real-time dig and enquiry activity dashboards, provide response wait times, and enable map-based searches.

“With the transition to the new platform complete, and almost three million referrals processed to date, we’re confident DBYD NextGen is a world-leading approach which provides greater transparency and service to all stakeholders who make and respond to DBYD enquiries.”

DBYD NextGen was developed on the SmarterWX technology platform – a Cloud-based smart mapping and collaboration application.

The project was delivered by technology specialists at Esri Australia and Deloitte Consulting and includes data contributors from around the country including Geoscape, Victoria’s Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Queensland’s Department of Resources, Tasmania’s Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment (DPIPWE) and NSW Spatial Services.

Esri Australia Group Managing Director Brett Bundock said the modernisation of DBYD’s network is an important step towards Australia’s goal of becoming a leading digital economy and society by 2030.
“What the DBYD service achieves, in terms of bringing disparate datasets together to enable secure, real-time information sharing across government groups and the commercial sector, fundamentally models the workings of modern National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI),” Mr Bundock said.

“As a data network that allows local, state and federal groups to seamlessly share data and insights, NSDI will equip Australia with the ability to better address challenges that cross jurisdictional boundaries, such as natural disasters and pandemics.

“From the 2011 Brisbane floods through to the federal government’s recent national data initiative announcement, governments have been looking for ways to promote cross-agency collaborations at scale.
“Fortunately for the nation’s governments and spatial industry, DBYD’s vision to digitally transform one of the country’s most trusted services stands as a blueprint for a true, national data sharing network.”

The DBYD NextGen referral service is expected to support more than 12 million referral enquiries this year.