For many years, too many organizations have relegated GIS to making maps and pretty pictures. GIS is far more than a map-making and spatial data storage system for water/wastewater utility infrastructure — and most utilities are not making the most of their GIS investment. In fact, only about 10 percent of public and private utilities have fully utilized their GIS’s potential.

The intended use of GIS is to make connections between related information sources and enable users to visualize and analyze this information using a spatial interface, most commonly, a map. In short, it is really all about the “I” — information.

Using GIS for the sole purpose of creating map books, while ignoring the information integration capabilities, fails to realize fully the large investment most organizations have put into developing a GIS. A GIS should be viewed like any other information-gathering and analysis tool, with the addition of the capability to answer the question: where?

With today’s technology advances, utility and civil engineers can gain much greater value from an organization’s GIS investment connecting to asset management systems (AMS) that support master planning, design, construction, and operation/maintenance activities.

It’s not a large leap, but it delivers a huge payoff.

Database disconnects
Historically, many utilities and governmental organizations that manage assets have developed both GIS and asset management systems as separate entities. Built to engineering accuracy, water and wastewater GIS datasets are often the central authoritative dataset for all asset locations and relevant attribute information, including pipe diameters, equipment types, capital improvement concepts, maintenance data, and much more. It is a primary support tool for operations, replacing hand-drawn system maps or as-built plan collections with reproducible and relatively easy-to-maintain, electronic system maps (see Figure 1). Typically, the GIS database is populated with basic physical asset information such as pipe/line and valve/switch type and size and other vital operational and engineering information.

Typical utilities inventory GIS information

Meanwhile, customer management systems, AMS, and work order systems provide information such as billing address, consumption data, install dates, repair information, and other vital system management information. It is very common for these disparate systems to lack the necessary common elements required to link the data for shared analysis and reporting. The lack of common record ID numbers is a result of developing information systems without a comprehensive understanding of the needs and requirements of the entire organization.

GIS ROI
The next step is to integrate GIS with other information, such as customer billing data, field maintenance records, and future land-use information. Once the system is complete, engineers and others with the proper training and understanding of the business are able to utilize the system’s hardware and software using defined procedures to perform many business-critical activities with efficiency and quality.

The benefits of integrated GIS/AMS include the following:

• customer service — meter reading route analysis and auditing, zero meter reporting, identification of illegal connections, and call responses;
• engineering — verification of service availability, planning and cost estimation, inspection assistance, and demographic and land use analysis for demand projections;
• finance — inventory and location of facility assets, depreciation analysis, determination/justification of customer connection fees, and “missing” customers (holes in database); and
• operations — facility locating and planning, facility management and planning, field map creation, and call response.

With integration of spatial information into a typical record-based AMS, operators are able to perform queries based on relative location and exploit spatial relationships. In a classical AMS, the operator typically is able to perform queries using asset identification numbers, asset types, and possibly a street address. While asset and customer information can be retrieved from the system, there is no easy way to select customers that are located along a specified service line or water main without spatial relationships. This is where GIS integration provides the largest return on investment.

For instance, Tampa Bay Water, a regional water supply authority, successfully integrated its customer database with GIS. This organization provides wholesale water to three city and three county public water/wastewater utilities that serve more than 2.4 million customers. Tampa Bay Water linked customer data from these six water distribution utilities using a parcel-based GIS to display water consumption data. This link allows both the authority and local utilities to visualize water use by their customers and quickly identify discrepancies, trends, and peaks in the database (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Water consumption data for selected golf course property

Utilities are able quickly to identify industrial customers being charged residential rates, identify potential leaks, and locate illicit connections using the visual reporting of the consumption data. This information was also used to promote water conservation efforts by identifying customers or neighborhoods that had unusually high levels of consumption based on water restrictions.

Once utilities integrate GIS with AMS, engineering groups can more quickly analyze problem areas and facilitate capital programs that will improve efficiency and effectiveness of the utility.

Common links
The key to system integration is a common element between features in the CMS/AMS databases and the GIS features.

The best way to integrate AMS with GIS is to populate all the AMS features using the inventory in GIS. The system should be kept in harmony using the GIS as the primary tool to add or remove an asset as conditions in the field change. The GIS should always be used to push additions/removals of features from the AMS. This ensures that each record in the AMS has a known location in the real world and can be used in spatial analysis applications. Software solutions such as VUEWorks, IBM’s Maximo Asset Management, and Azteca Systems’ Cityworks incorporate readily available hooks that link asset functionality to GIS databases and solutions, and most are Web-enabled.

Engineers should be able to visualize the AMS information using the map display capabilities of the GIS. At the same time, the spatial analysis and query capabilities should be leveraged in the utilization of the AMS. In theory, both systems should behave as one.

For instance, VUEWorks software operates on top of GIS databases and uses map graphics produced by ArcGIS software. The combination of VUEWorks and GIS enables engineers to monitor and analyze data about water, storm sewer, and sanitary sewer systems.

For example, the Summit County, Ohio, Department of Environmental Services (DOES) operates wastewater collection, transportation, and treatment for unincorporated areas of the county. All of the county’s assets are mapped in GIS. Using VUEWorks, the county integrated multiple databases within GIS, including a merchant manhole database; pump station work orders, which creates work orders for pump stations; pump station and plant alarms; pump station inventory; sewer maintenance, which creates work orders for manholes and sewer lines; manhole inspection; capacity, management, operations, and maintenance (CMOM); permits; customer addresses; and wastewater treatment plants (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: VueWorks work order integration with GIS mapping

Facilitating design
A GIS also provides a critical asset inventory and analysis system to drive water-demand and operational models that engineers use regularly to design new facilities or expand service at existing facilities.

Typically, engineers would develop water demand models as schematics independent of GIS. However, water distribution modeling and distribution management software such as Bentley’s WaterCAD and MWH Soft’s InfoWater integrate with GIS to combine spatial data with operational characteristics for a visual design and analysis framework (see Figure 4).

Model developed using GIS databas

The Pinellas County, Fla., Utilities Department recently integrated its GIS with water-demand modeling. The department’s engineering division regularly uses the integrated solution to track and manage water systems and facilities visually from a GIS interface. Engineers track everything from the age of the water in the system to pressure zones throughout the county.

Before investing in GIS and asset management integration, make sure existing solutions can communicate and interact with each other.

When it comes to AMS/GIS integration, interoperability is no longer a problem with advanced tools. Most AMS vendors provide some type of GIS integration and have tools built in to perform spatial analysis and reporting tools that take advantage of spatial relationships. Proper planning and budgeting can help to ensure that the AMS is truly enterprise-wide and will incorporate all the vital data required to manage and plan effectively for the future needs of the organization and its customers.

It’s time to make sure your GIS is all about the “I.”

William Walter, GISP, is a group manager with PBS&J’s Applied Technologies Group. He can be reached at 813-281-8372 or wewalter@pbsj.com.