The third edition of National conference of the Italian Association for Quality Culture, AICQ, Rome 11 November 2019, presents three projects by Reference Practices (see box) 
requested by this association to UNI and elaborated in the past months. They concerned i managerial professional profiles of the experts who, using enabling technologies, will support the application of innovation in the processes and organizational systems of critical infrastructures, with particular attention to Railway sectors, Buildings and Power.
The aforementioned Reference Practices have been published on November 4th, in UNI/PdR catalogue,. They can be acquired, after registering, here.
Each PdR has been enriched with a chapter relating to the operational guidelines for assessing the compliance of people with the knowledge, skills and responsibility requirements identified and aimed at certification.
Stati General dell'Innovazione (SGI), together with AM/FM GIS Italia, had the opportunity to participate in the work of this project in representation of the UNICT 526 UNINFO Committee "Unregulated professional activities - Professional figures operating in the ICT sector”. Collaboration with experts senior in the three vertical sectors mentioned, in an open and inclusive context, it has made it possible to represent and motivate the contribution that geospatial technologies can provide with respect to the themes of "Enterprise 4.0" [1], applied to the context of critical infrastructures.
The infrastructure sector and the geospatial market
The sector of Infrastructure will be among the major global industry drivers for the growth of the geospatial market (see figure 1: source: Geospatial Media Analysis, 2018).
Figure 1. Top 10 Industry Sectors Driving Geospatial Market Growth by 2020
The growing need for resilient infrastructure, in particular, will be a major driver of the geospatial sector, inducing its growth in the architecture, engineering and construction industries (so-called AEC[2]) in the period 2018 – 2022 (see figure 2; source: Geospatial Media Analysis, 2019).
In 2018, the geospatial market of the AEC industry reached a value of approximately 60 billion US dollars globally, equal to approximately 18% of its total and corresponding to 0.53% of this constantly growing sector, as shown by the histograms referring to the period 2014 - 2022 in figure 2, where this trend is presented disaggregated into the various components.
Figure 2. Trend 2014 – 2022 of the global AEC market, broken down by sectors (in trillions of $)
Due to this expected development, In the years to come, the Infrastructure sector will require a greater use of expert professionals in geospatial technologies.
The growth of the Infrastructure sector naturally also affects Italy. Even in the absence of available forecasts regarding the geospatial market of the national AEC industry, it is to be assumed that the increase in the demand for skills relating to geospatial technologies can also be confirmed for our country.
SGI's contribution to the UNI/PdR project "Enterprise 4.0: professional profiles for the infrastructure sector"
To describe the contribution provided by SGI to this project, it is necessarily necessary to briefly recall the methodology followed by the three working groups formed to draw up the PdR corresponding to the three sectors considered. The first action concerned the identification of possible organizational areas in which the "Enterprise 4.0" expert is called to provide his or her contribution. Some of these concern the three sectors transversally (such as, for example: "Supply Chain Management" and "Human Resources Management"). Others are specific to a certain sector (for all, as an example, we recall the "Programming of the Transport Service", the main feature of the railway sector).
The second step it made it possible to apply to each area - intended as a macro-activity - a description aimed at highlighting in detail the contextual activities at the corresponding "macro" level.
In the end, the third has foreseen the characterization of each macro-activity in terms of requirements knowledge, ability And responsibility-autonomy (skills) necessary for the expert to have an effective impact on the innovation process.
This last phase can be considered the heart of the project; developed thanks to the collection of contributions provided by individual participants, on several occasions. In fact, periodically, these contributions have been the subject of collegial comparison, both within the working groups relating to the three sectors examined, and on the occasion of plenary meetings of the project working table.
The contribution of States General of Innovation to this UNI/PdR has purely concerned this phase and has intended to provide a contribution to the increase of geospatial skills in the context of the sectors considered by the project, sharing with colleagues the experience gained in the drafting of the UNI 11621-5:2018 standard – Unregulated professional activities – Professional profiles for ICT – Part 5: Professional profiles related to Geographic Information (GI).
Furthermore, it was interesting and useful to note that the "Enterprise 4.0" expert for infrastructures, regardless of the sector, can operate within a wide variety of "vertical" professional contexts and, simultaneously, can be included in any of the processes Of business of ICT, whose associated skills have been systematized by theEuropean e-Competence Framework 3.0 (eCF, also UNI 11506:2017 standard). Indeed, the manager an expert in innovative processes in the context of "Enterprise 4.0" must certainly possess a transversal vision of company processes; on the other hand she/he is a professional who works in the sphere of processes business typical of ICT, as recruited to enhance the new technological tools within organizations, having full control over their availability. In other words, its role can be understood as that of a process facilitator, inserted among the manager highly specialized, responsible for "vertical" macro-activities and specialist professionals in the ICT sector, with whom they share a wide range of knowledge, skills and competences.
Having already faced the identification of professional competence requirements in a context with a similar operational characteristic - that of the Geographic Information professional -, it seemed stimulating to follow the same approach adopted in the context of the aforementioned UNI 11621-5:2018 standard. By operating in this way, it was possible to select proposals and - in general - participate in the activity of defining the knowledge, skill and responsibility-autonomy requirements of the managerial profiles of expert professionals who, making use of enabling technologies, support the valorisation, transfer and application of innovation related to "Enterprise 4.0" in the processes and organizational systems of the Critical Infrastructures of the three sectors considered.
Requirements of Knowledge, Ability and Responsibility & Autonomy in the field of geospatial technologies
For the formulation of contributions to the drafting of the PdR specifically concerning the knowledge, skills and competences on the subject of geospatial technologies, we took a cue from those required for professional figures with a managerial profile of the referenced standard: the Geographic Information Manager (GIM) and the Geographic Knowledge Enabler (GKE). Obviously, the introduction of Geospatial Technology is fundamental in the list of those recognized as enablers of the innovative processes of "Enterprise 4.0" and the introduction of its explanatory definition, compliant with UNI 11621-5:2018.
Therefore, requirements of knowledge, skills and competences related to the following macro-activities have been proposed and accepted.
- Enhancement, Transfer and Application of Enabling Technologies
Knowledge: Geospatial technologies, their integration in the ICT field and their use within theengineering traditional
- Human resources management
Knowledge: Inspirational, cognitive and social principles that influence the understanding of the value of geospatial technologies
Ability: Evaluate training needs related to geo-digital literacy (geo-digital skills)
- Project Management (Construction Sector) and Improvement Process Management (Sector: Railway)
Ability: Identify and propose integrations between GIS and other geospatial technologies (eg. Remote Sensing, Scanning), with ICT technologies (eg. Building Information Modelling, BIM and business intelligence, BI) as well as other components of the corporate information infrastructure (eg. Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition -. SCADA, Enterprise Resource Planning – ERP, etc.)
- Infrastructure Operation, Verification and Maintenance (Sector: Energy)
Ability: Knowing how to identify and propose integrations between SCADA, geospatial technologies, ICT and other components of the corporate information infrastructure (e.g. BIM, ERP, etc.)
First findings and conclusions
Of particular relevance was the inclusion within the Responsibilities-Autonomy for the macro-activity "Management of Improvement Processes" of the following requirement referring to Federated National Information System of Infrastructures, SYNFI:
«[The “Enterprise 4.0” expert] Interacts with the structure responsible for managing the SINFI, promoting synergistic actions in terms of innovation in the processes of operation, verification and maintenance of the infrastructure».
SGI, together with AM/FM GIS Italia, follows with attention and commitment the issues of the cadastre of technological networks and - since its establishment - of the SINFI (in this regard, we point out our last post on the DATATHON recently organized by Ministry of Economic Development, in collaboration with Infratel Italy and the team of Talent Garden). This professional capacity of the experts who will operate in the field of critical infrastructures, introduced for each sector - Energy, Construction, Railway -, contributes to enhancing this strategic information system for our country. In fact, the SINFI was created in the context of requests for the development of Ultra Broadband (BUL), but the innumerable potential of its use was immediately grasped, also in synergy with other data ecosystems, for the development of a broad spectrum of digital services for the benefit of the production sector from an "Enterprise 4.0" perspective, the public administration and citizens.
In this context, SGI has taken an active part in creating collaborative relationships between AICQ -we recall, the applicant for this UNI/PdR project- and Infratel Italia -a company appointed by the Italian Government to implement the Italian strategy for ultra-broadband and which manages SINFI-e collaborated in the November 11 event referred to in the introduction, to which our association granted patronage.
In the following, SGI intends to propose itself to carry out training initiatives on the subject of geospatial technologies (but not only), within the programs of AICQ and Infratel Italia. In perspective, the preparation of a specific Reference Practice dedicated to the SINFI can be considered, involving - together with the aforementioned subjects - the widest representation of stakeholders, such as UTILITALIA and ANCI and, in general, the professional representations that contribute to Italy's digital progress.
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[1] As part of this project, "Industry 4.0" takes on the name "Enterprise 4.0": it indicates an organizational method of business processes, capable of circulating and managing information related to the generation of value
added, among the various interconnected components of the Business System (machines, people, IT systems, goods and services).
[2] This productive sector involves professionals from these three sectors to achieve common goals and provide theoutput finish efficiently. It includes industrial, construction and transport infrastructure; the transport sector includes airports, railways, ports and road infrastructures.
