Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com

Cayman Islands leading Caribbean in lands and survey technology
08-17-2006

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands: Aiming for a 28-day turnaround time for the issuing of new land registry parcel numbers, high-tech changes have been made at Cayman's Lands and Survey Department.

Among the most significant of these changes is that Cayman's Land Surveyors can receive Internet-to-cell phone communication on work they have done, instead of having to get it through a radio receiver.

This facility has put the Lands and Survey Department out in front of similar operations throughout the Caribbean.

This improvement in the Department's operation is part of the spin-off benefits from the Government's investment in Global Positioning System (GPS) technology - a worldwide radio navigation system formed from a constellation of 24 satellites and their ground stations.

On 11 August, at a Media Briefing by Cabinet Members, Leader of Government Business, Kurt Tibbetts, revealed several high-tech, and other advancements, now in place in the Islands' Lands & Survey Department.

He justified the Department's changes in the areas of infrastructure, technology, staff and training, saying that the Lands & Survey Department is "one of the most service-oriented departments.

"Service is the name of the game there, because the faster they can churn out the business" is the faster fees can be collected.

Tibbetts said that the "Government has made substantial investment in GPS technology, which provides the Cayman Islands with real-time, 24 hours a day, island-wide GPS data, accurate to decimals of an inch."

He said that there are three permanent GPS CORS (Continually Operating Reference Stations) base stations throughout the Islands.

He said the Trimble devices that Surveyors use act as base stations for the receipt of satellite data.

The devices also provide a fixed reference point that allows for atmospheric and time corrections to be calculated and simultaneously broadcast to the Land Surveyor in the field.

This way, the Surveyor can achieve accurate positions - eliminating the need for long hours surveying in the field.

"As an added convenience, the Department utilises traditional radio wireless to broadcast the corrections," Tibbetts stated.

"This also offers real-time Internet-to-cell phone coverage, enabling the user to receive corrections through a cell phone as opposed to a radio receiver - a first in the Caribbean."

Over the past year Lands & Survey have conducted a department-wide review of work processes and have made other improvements to help decrease throughput times.

According to Tibbetts, during the review, Senior Management found two main points that contribute to delays - firstly, there were faults with the Quality Control (QC) of Licensed Land Surveyors' submissions, and secondly, there was the length of time taken in the actual creation of parcel files and registry.

The Department found that, in the past, too much time was spent on QC - an area that could be appropriately handled by the licensed land surveyors (LLS) on the Island.

As of 1 November 2005, the Department transferred QC responsibility to the local companies operating as Licensed Land Surveyors.

By handing over this task, and introducing Quality Assurance (QA), the department has been able to improve processing times - periods that, in the past, could be as high as 100 days.

According to Tibbetts, the Department is working towards achieving a target level of 10 days by October 2006.