TIBCO allows Scotland’s EPA to analyze more than just environmental data
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) generates millions of data points every year and still works regularly with data going back more than 70 years. SEPA’s role is to make sure that the environment and human health are protected, to ensure that Scotland’s natural resources and services are used as sustainably as possible, and to contribute to sustainable economic growth. In protecting such a vast array of assets and resources, SEPA has gathered and analyzed data from a variety of sources in order to produce accurate models and make decisions.
“A key thing about an organization like SEPA is that our data resources are quite broad, and there are a lot of different types of data that we use across the organization,” said Mark Hallard, informatics unit manager at SEPA.
Environmental data, such as hydrological data including water flow and rainfall, and sample data including chemistry, ecology, and microbiology data, are collected by SEPA, as well as business and compliance data, including projects, budgets, licenses, and fees. It was difficult for SEPA to organize and analyze in a way that allowed them to make evidence-based decisions that would be best for the environment and the business. That’s when it turned to TIBCO.
Even though it was originally seeking a solution that would allow it to take full advantage of its environmental data, SEPA quickly realized TIBCO solutions might also be useful for organizing and enhancing its business and compliance-based data. “While the original acquisition of the tool was driven by our environmental data needs, it was actually a business change program that we needed going forward. That is what drove the initial consideration of a data visualization tool like Spotfire,” said Hallard.
SEPA turned to TIBCO because of its proven solutions that allow users to gain real-time insights into their data analysis. TIBCO Spotfire® and TIBCO® Data Science were the tools SEPA needed to bring together its disparate data sources to realize its full potential. The data visualization, web-based analytics, predictive capabilities provided SEPA the evidence required to make quick, reliable decisions.
“We’re working with a lot of different data types, and that’s the value that Spotfire brought to us. We’ve been able to develop a number of different tools and serve different users, and that broader business value has really come across the entire business,” Hallard said.
To learn more about the many ways TIBCO solutions have helped SEPA protect and improve Scotland’s environment and public health, check out the full case study.