GAF AG’s management consulting services, which have been successfully serving clients for over 20 years, have earned the company a widely respected reputation. As a partner for project design, management and implementation services in the fields of geo-information, satellite remote sensing and spatial IT consultancy, GAF has advised and supported private and public clients in more than 100 countries throughout Europe, Africa, South-America and Asia.
Requirements Analysis
Well defined and well understood requirements are the key to any successful IT project. GAF`s analysts are specialists in defining your business objectives, target sectors and workflows, as well as the requirements that must be met to satisfy those objectives. GAF performs this not only from the perspectives of data and processes, but includes the analysis of system networks, people and organizations, skills, events, and motivation. All relevant elements are analyzed in their current and potential future environments.
Institutional / Sector Assessment
Technical assistance projects using geo-information, information systems and/or earth observation technologies,often require the integration of local knowledge and capacity. Typically, no up-to-date inventory of local sources exists, such as GIS inventories of data, systems in place and service providers.
Training / Knowledge Transfer
Our aim in all our work is to help clients themselves develop their own knowledge and expertise. Therefore, education and training is seen as a key element in assisting creation of a sustainable knowledge base for the medium and long-term execution of major project elements. GAF has been committed for many years to ensuring the provision of tools to enable clients to drive forward their own development. GAF provides training which is directed towards the establishment of GIS databases for planning purposes and image interpretation techniques to give guidance and to enable all trained staff to be aware and to make use of these technologies.
Administrative Capacity Building
Institutional capacity building ensures the creation of an environment with appropriate policy and legal frameworks. This involves institutional development, including open participation, human resources development and the strengthening of managerial systems. GAF has a long record of providing support to public and private institutions in countries all over the world . The special GAF expertise includes setting up and strengthening of institutions dealing with geo-information, the environment and natural resources as well as the introduction and implementation of information technology, establishment of national and regional structures and holding of training courses. A good example are mining sector strengthening projects were GAF not only designs, develops and implements the information system side but provides consultancy in the elaboration and implementation of administrative procedures and cadastre management.
Project Definition / Supervision
GAF has assisted in the definition of large and long-term projects, a service ideally and successfully performed if an up-to-date and solid experience in project execution is already available. Preparatory documents, inventories and finally tender documents are usual deliverables of such contracts. Furthermore we have conducted many supervisory projects , some for years, in various countries and for many clients in agriculture, forestry, geology, environment, land management, and infrastructure. Again, our strength lies in our wide project implementation experience and in-depth knowledge of technical and management obstacles during the project life cycle, as well as the ways to overcome them.
Earth Observation Studies
Image data processing and analysis is always closely linked to Earth Observation (EO) technology (sensors, satellites, ground systems). Since the early Landsat times a large number of new EO systems with ever increasing performance have been put into orbit, accompanied by an incredible increase in processing performance. It is widely agreed though that despite these advances and huge investments in the space infrastructure, the utilization of them is still lagging behind. With its "down-to-earth" philosophy and by closely listening to the users, GAF is in an excellent position to offer a broad blend of EO related consultancy services such as EO commercial application and market studies, capacity building programmes for remote sensing centres.
