GIS and Mapping as a Workflow Management Solution for Utility Infrastructure
Posted on January 14, 2013 by Joe Metro
One way to picture the infrastructure of almost any utility - electricity, oil, natural gas, telecommunications, etc. - is to visualize an interconnected network of different piping systems and associated components.
In the case of a water and sewage treatment facility, for example, there’s the Backwash In piping system that has a particular type of pipe and a particular type of valve. There’s the Raw Water In system with its own combination of pipes and values; the Return Activated Sludge system with its own pipes and valves; the Filter By-Pass system with yet another kind of pipe-valve combination. Etc. etc.
A small to mid-scale treatment facility can easily have 30 or more different piping systems, and over 200 layers of associated system components.
Visualizing Complex Infrastructure Assets & Processes
Tracking, visualizing, managing and communicating all of these different layers of piping, associated infrastructure assets (valves, filters, fittings, communication fiber, etc.), as well as maintenance workflows, is an essential requirement for any treatment facility. However, typically these components are accessed and managed by different departments across the organization.
For example, treatment plant infrastructure information will be catalogued in CAD software, accessible to the plant CAD engineers. For the plant supervisor who is not an AutoCAD aficionado, if they have a project to add in a new fiber communications system and want to avoid digging into an existing wastewater overflow piping system circa 2007, they would need to visit the engineering department to access the data in AutoCAD and print out the layer identifying some code for wastewater overflow piping like "SC_47W". If the supervisor wants to annotate and share this information as part of a work order, they do it on the paper printout and distribute hardcopies.
Accessible, Interactive GIS/CAD Layers
But a centralized, GIS-based solution can make this more accessible and interactive using a web based Google-map like visual interface. Any authorized user can easily view and overlay any GIS/CAD layers and associated assets. Click on a layer or feature to change labels (e.g. SC_47W becomes wastewater overflow piping) or get more detailed information about that item (e.g. built in 2007, dependent on backwash out system, etc.). Annotate, redline or draw directly on a new map layer and share this with colleagues. No CAD or GIS experience required!
Mapping as a Workflow Management Solution
From a workflow perspective, layers no matter how well labeled are not enough. Ideally when doing a project you want some way to group and categorize layers and assets related to a project. In a GIS/Mapping solution this is nothing more complicated then defining a project or category and adding in layers with associated information. Underneath every category a user can then see the layers, a description of the layer, the last time it was updated, any markup (timelines, caveats or redlines) and just about anything else you want to include. You could even save these categories and share them with colleagues.
Finally since this is all part of geo-aware database, a GIS solution enables you to run simple or advanced search queries to find specific components or higher level Meta data. You can then share the resulting search data and visual map with others.
A focus on projects and workflow is one of the most compelling features of a GIS solution for treatment facilities. By enabling custom groupings, engineers, technicians and supervisors can easily collaborate on projects and all share relevant information both visually and tabulated. For common workflow tasks such as checking to see if a dig would impact any existing systems, a GIS solution can group together and visually display all underground lines and assets in a given area that could be affected by the planned dig. Other frequent workflow tasks could similarly be defined and saved.
User interface moves GIS beyond the realm of technicians-only
Most people don’t immediately think of GIS as a workflow management tool usable by non-technicians. But at Farallon, our recent work focuses on designing GIS-based solutions with accessible, user-validated UI can be used to facilitate project management and common workflows.
Tags:
Asset Management,
Water Resources
The role of GIS in asset management of water resources for developing (and developed) countries
Posted on March 01, 2011 by Dennis Wuthrich
Managing water resources and water resources infrastructure is of growing importance worldwide. Here in California water resource management is increasingly a hot topic because of our growing population and the impacts of climate change - where is the water, where are the pipes, where are the pumps & equipment, where are the people the water flows to, etc - all of this information needs to be collected, managed and understood, in order to make intelligent decisions.
As serious as our water resources infrastructure management issues are here in California, they are even more pressing in developing countries in Africa. Whether at a village, NGO or regional government level there needs to be some way to understand where assets (from hand pumps to seasonal water sources) are located, what condition they are in and how they vary over time.
A GIS asset management system address these issue in a highly effective and when done right, a cost-effective manner.
I have a lot to say on these topics, but will summarize the important bits as follows:
- The core role of GIS in asset management is to act as the authoritative inventory of a water system assets. The GIS is the final word on the "what and where" of your system assets. The actual work of managing your assets (the "workflows" that you use to inspect, repair, monitor, and extend your water system) will all rely on this spatially referenced inventory.
- By far, the most valuable and important component of your GIS will be the database that you use to store and manage the asset data in a secure and flexible manner. Organizations will want to use a relational database management system capable of working with geometries (such as points, lines, polygons, geo-referenced images) natively. Most of the standard databases can now store, index, query, and process geometries. To me, PostgreSQL with the PostGIS extension is the relational database that best balances capability and ease of use.
- The most cost effective, but also some of the most innovative GIS solutions use Open Source software. PostGIS is an open source database. GeoServer is a great spatial server. OpenLayers is a great web application client framework. QGIS is a very good desktop GIS. All are Open Source. And all can be obtained for free. As for support, companies like Farallon and OpenGeo provide support for these technologies.
- Because asset data will be the most valuable portion of any system, encoding information in openly published data formats is important. By this I mean that data should be accessible without requiring the purchase or use of a single, vendor controller API. OGC standards ensure this. And integrating your GIS with other systems should be done using web services that use standard and open encodings such as JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) and REST (Representational State Transfer) patterns.
- Collecting data in the field needs to be simple, inexpensive, and fool-proof so that your users get complete and valid information. In my opinion, the latest smart phones (like Android and iPhones) and tablets (like the iPad and the coming wave of Android-based tablets) are becoming the best platforms for collecting data in the field. We've done several field data collection projects using Android phones/tablets, and they work extremely well.
- Even with all this discussion concerning technology, I must say that technical bits usually end up being the easiest part of any system development. The challenge is to truly understand how to build solutions that make it easier for people to do their jobs. This means understanding your users information requirements, designing easy to learn and robust workflows, making user interfaces easy to use, and deploying it all in a way that your clients can actually maintain without breaking their budgets.
Because this blog post is about resource management in developing countries where budgets and technological infrastructure are limited, I've focused my comments on Open Source Software, Open Data formats, and standards-based technologies. But the same principals on using a GIS for asset management apply to organizations with existing IT and GIS infrastructures using commercial software such as ESRI or Intergraph.
Farallon has a lot of experience in developing asset management systems for the developing world (e.g. Mega-J), as well as for the developed world (e.g. Union Sanitary District). Water systems, in particular, are an area in which we have a good bit of experience.
Tags:
Asset Management,
Open Source,
Water Resources
