The business objective of the Montgomery Water Works and Sanitary Sewer Board (MWWSSB) GIS/FM Project is to automate in an integrated system the Board's business functions, which in turn allows them to provide the most efficient water and sanitary sewer services to their customers in the Montgomery, Alabama, area. The nucleus of this distributed system is the Board's ArcInfo- and Hansen IMS-based GIS/FM system, which will manage the utility infrastructure, primarily water and wastewater conveyance networks, under routine planning and O and M operations as well as in emergency conditions. The MWWSSB GIS design fits within the "80% similar-20% dissimilar" guidelines for water and wastewater system databases. Departure from the guidelines is primarily associated with the Board's desire to automate the transfer of attribute information from the ArcInfo conversion coverages to the FM system, where attribute data will be maintained. One objective of the implementation project is to use the GIS in a productive manner during the conversion process, so the MWWSSB staff can become familiar with the new system. The presentation will focus on the integration of a field operations procedure which uses GPS and GIS tools. GPS is used to determine vertical and horizontal position of utility fixtures. GPS data is downloaded directly into ArcView. Programs are written to manage the incoming positional data so that fixture locations (represented as nodes in the line coverages) are adjusted and attributes are updated in the FM system.
A facilities plan for a wastewater collection system forms the basis from which all of its planning is made. As a result, facilities plans must be both comprehensive and timely. The first of these issues is just a volume issue; in other words, it means a lot of information must be dealt with. The second one of timeliness is more difficult to grasp and resolve. The comprehensive nature of the data is slightly compounded with the fact that the data we are talking about is spatial. Therefore, not only the knowledge of the location of facilities is important, but their spatial relationship to other facilities is also important. This is the first reason why the use of a GIS is key. The timeliness issue stems from our fixation with preparing reports on paper. The problem is that development and other changes out in the real world do not stop once a plan is committed to paper; they continue on. As a result, a facilities plan begins going out of date the minute it is printed on paper. Understanding that the collection and management of the data is best done on a GIS, it is natural to extend that thought to maintain the facilities plan on that same system so that it is continuously up to date. This makes even more sense once we consider the fact that a lot of the supporting data, such as population, land use, and employment, etc., are data maintained on GIS. Brown and Caldwell has been building such systems for our clients for over ten years and recently we were assigned to build such a plan for a large wastewater concern in the State of Washington. Since the clients' current operating platform is PCs, we chose to use ArcCAD and ArcView as the platform to build the on-line facilities plan with. This paper will detail out the conceptual pieces that go into a project like this as well as the specifics with respect to the actual application referred to above.
The Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati (MSD) is a large operation delivering wastewater collection and treatment services to 800,000 customers living in thirty-five municipalities throughout Hamilton County, Ohio. With over 3,000 miles of sewer lines, twenty-three treatment plants, and a comprehensive $320 million capital improvement program, MSD is committed to its mission of protecting and enhancing water quality. The advantages of GIS as a data integrator to further empower its mission have been known to MSD since the mid-1980s. As a member of CAGIS (Cincinnati Area Geographic Information System), a consortium of public and private utilities and other government agencies, MSD shares a vision of improved service delivery through widespread use of GIS and a framework of open and integrated distributed data sharing. To help realize the vision, virtually all CAGIS members have migrated to the Esri suite of GIS software products. This has facilitated the search for ways to achieve a progressive functionality even while still in the midst of completing its data conversion. Though data conversion was in the final phases, MSD pursued early applications that delivered rapid and measurable benefits. These quickly demonstrated the utility of an integrated data framework, exercised the database design, provided a focus on data quality, and exposed and trained our personnel in various GIS techniques with "real" data. Working prototypes for new applications were developed that pushed the data framework to encompass a wide range of shared applications including capital improvement and customer service. This paper presents a case history that focuses on the approach to database design, conversion, maintenance, current and projected application development, and prototyping techniques. Examples and implementation recommendations are given.
Voice communication whether by radio or in person, has been the norm in directing maintenance activities. With the advent of automation, the process of tracking activities and creating an historical database has been enhanced. To do this, however, required the unnatural process of recording all information in a text based system. The use of automated mapping provided an avenue to updated information but was still limited in its ability to impact the maintenance management process. Now, with the advent of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) organizations have the ability to change their process so that effective planning and tracking of maintenance activities can be accomplished in every day operations. The planning and tracking of all maintenance tasks is a daunting process even for the best organizations. Effective planning requires the knowledge not just of what needs to be done, but the best time to do it. Tracking maintenance and knowing what's being done as well as what has been done requires detail in a manageable form. The maintenance management process is evolving from the use of automation to enhance a current business practice to an actual change in methodology that will make an organization more efficient with more access to more information. This change reflects the use of GIS in a real time mode as well as a planning tool through the use of historical data. This presentation will highlight the use of ArcView Version 2 in the process of generating, tracking and planning maintenance activities. The Long Beach Water Department will be used has an example for the implementation and application of ArcView Version 2 within the maintenance process.