In 2011, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) documented the methodological
architecture for Stats SA outlining how integration of systems, standards development
and methodological support during the design and implementation of statistical
production processes would enhance public confidence and trust in the official
statistics. The Project kicked off using a phased approach, where the focus in terms of
the first phase was the development and the implementation of the various
components required across the Meta-data layer, Data Layer and Application Layer.
The paper focuses on the challenges and achievements during the integration thereof.
Some of the challenges that will be discussed in the paper would be over commitment
of resources, reprioritisation of key projects, relevant skills set, buy-in from the
organisation and budget. As part of the achievements the paper will cover
e-collections, enhanced data visualisation and interaction through Roambi flow, data
analytics and mobile applications as well as the documentation of best practices,
methodologies used, and development of applicable standards. Other achievements
include the development of a Central Metadata Repository (CMDR) which stores
concepts and definitions, variables, classifications. The next phase within the CMDR
development would be to expand the CMDR to include statistical metadata as well as
a questionnaire builder. Effort has been invested in ensuring that the different
components of the architecture are in place, going forward is the process of integration
of the developed components across the layers.