The Silesia region, in the southern part of Poland with capital Katowice, is one of the most densely populated and industrialized regions of Europe. The need for a region-wide GIS system has been recognized by all regional/local government and facilities managers. The AM/FM solutions for large facilities providers like: electric power (including the Polish Power Grid), water/wastewater, telecommunication, heat supply, roads, rely heavily on the existence of current land base data. This integrated approach was the key factor in successful implementation of AM/FM GIS in Silesia built on Esri software technology. This paper presents the development and implementation path for the Silesian AM/FM GIS systems.
The political changes after 1989 in Poland resulted in the redefinition of management paradigms, especially in utilities management. Very often the heritage of spatial and non-spatial paper records is a doubtful asset.Among the new challenges was: creating (very often from scratch) and updating the spatial database of the facilities and integrating it with the landbase GIS data. The next major step was to integrate this large utilities/landbase database with typical management functionality ( assets, billing, ,work order, planning etc.). In Silesia (with a population of over 4 million) where the density of infrastructure is the highest in Poland, the notion 'integrated utilities and landbase GIS' is of paramount importance. An important driving force in creating the municipal/regional and facilities GIS was from its beginning the Surveyor of the Regional Government in Katowice (Voivodeship of Katowice). The first step (in 1995) was to prepare and sign joint agreements among the voivodeship government (surveyor's office), the facilities providers (electricity, gas, water/sewage, district heat, telecommunication) and the major cities of Silesia (e.g. Chorzow, Katowice, Bytom). These agreements define the scope of spatial data transfer, the initial financial and asset contribution of all GIS participants. All three participants meet regularly in order to assess progress on creating the spatial database and to secure the adherence of the spatial data to the survey standards. Very often the existing law does not keep up the pace with the technological changes (e.g. the equivalence of paper maps and digital data) and also the scope of interests of the facilities providers is much broader than that of the surveyor's office.The commonly agreed upon foundation is that the base spatial data of the facilities and surveyor GIS should be stored in the same format (ArcInfo). The access to WAN (Wide Area Network) and Internet is seen as the next step in integrating and providing the spatial data.
Hanslik Software Laboratory (HSL) has worked closely from its beginning with all Silesian GIS participants. This work was multifold: covering the definition of spatial data specifications for the utilities and municipal GIS and delivery of software solutions to implement AM/FM GIS. Currently HSL has been awarded contracts to implement the main AM/FM GIS systems in the region including:
All the above AM/FM GIS projects are being implemented in Esri GIS technology. The adoption of Esri GIS as a municipal and regional GIS standard has been a fundamental advantage in implementing AM/FM GIS in Silesia. The data transfer among all GIS participants has become (at least technically) a straightforward undertaking.
During this year, another important city and region of Bielsko-Biala has started an integrated municipal/utilities GIS project in Esri technology.
One of the primary tasks (after passing the hurdles of GIS modeling) in implementing an AM/FM GIS is the delivery of flexible tools for spatial data editing. HSL has developed ARC/FED (ARC Facilities Editing) as a set of generic software tools which are tailored to the specific needs of the utilities. ARC/FED was developed synchronously in two environments: GIS (ArcInfo, ArcStorm, ArcView, MapObjects) and RDBMS (Oracle).
ARC/FED was developed on the basis of the modeling experience gained during previous utilities studies and pilot projects. The idea was to find the greatest 'common denominator' for all utilities models. The modeling of electrical distribution and transmission systems was the most complex and challenging task, and helped much to understand and design the reusable ARC/FED components (ArcTools philosophy was another valuable pattern). The tabular data editing is largely simplified by using the ArcView (MapObjects) and Oracle environment. Currently all facilities have their models implemented in ARC/FED, with specific features taken into account. ARC/FED has extensive multimedial catalogues management and this functionality helps significantly in ordering and validating data. It should be emphasized that the utilities models were elaborated in close cooperation with all utilities as well as companies delivering computational packages (e.g. for load calculation). The use of CASE methods for the RDBMS part of ARC/FED has been another advantage, especially under the constantly changing (growing) customers needs.
ARC/FED extends ArcTools (ArcEdit) functionality by adding such mechanisms as project management, data dictionaries, tools for network modeling, data validation and many more.
A very important ARC/FED tool and data transfer procedure has been developed for the survey companies delivering survey data to the utilities. The idea was to enable the survey engineers to collect and transfer spatial data (i.e. classical survey data plus mandatory attributes) in a standard format and structure. These tools consist of MapObjects based tools (the 'mobile' part of the tools) and the importing and converting functions in ArcInfo. Both parts permit the user to define the spatial data themes and attributes . The MapObjects part uses templates to tailor its 'behaviour' to the specific utility needs. Obviously this flexibility is strictly governed by the imposed data transfer standards.
ARC/FED data maintenance, update and history policy is based on ArcStorm.
For all AM/FM projects, a pilot project was carried out during which HSL submitted prototype software solutions which were then evaluated by a large number of potential users. To provide for easy access to the prototype application and data structure, a simple MS Access plus ArcView package was made available. The resulting feedback was an invaluable help in defining the final functionality and data structure. At this step decisions were also made on software and hardware configuration.
The implementation of the system is guided by the cities such as Chorzow, which pursue the goal of having a global and current spatial database of all utilities (not to mention their own typical urban data as cadastre). Also the urban planning process relies much on the existence of such databases in the assessment of the property value and functionality.
In all cases, the landbase data include (among others) the coverages:
together with the mandatory database and raster data. This landbase database serves as the editing environment for the AM/FM GIS. The AM/FM GIS data delivered by a particular provider (e.g. heat supply) to the city GIS is then accessible by all GIS participants (e.g. water, gas) in the same format (ArcInfo coverage) and structure.Other important spatial data is provided by processing aerial (ortho) photos. This process is being supervised by the Voivodeship Surveyor and will allow updating spatial data for the utilities and municipal GIS.
All facilities providers have their own (UNIX) GIS systems based on ArcInfo, ArcStorm, ArcView and Oracle RDBMS. In most cases, there is a special GIS data entry and management team with IT and utilities experience. A city which plays a particular role in coordinating and implementing regional GIS is Chorzow. One should talk of 'Chorzow Steering Committee' as all strategic decisions (guided by the Voivodeship Surveyor) have their origins in Chorzow. All major (regional) utilities like electrical power, gas, telecom, heat started their AM/FM GIS projects in Chorzow.
The idea behind AM/FM GIS is to build a 'GIS centric' integrated system. Until recently, this idea was not fully recognized by the facilities providers. Any document flow analysis reveals the enormous potential for integrating such systems as billing, repairs, demand forecasting, assets, SCADA with AM/FM GIS. Thanks to the integration with the landbase data, the utilities GIS offers new, 'milestone' possibilities like e.g. integration of GIS with the demand analysis (note that the demographic data is also accessible via the city GIS). In most cases, the AM/FM GIS which is a rather new technology, is superior to the installed information technology (IT). Thus a new effect has been observed: the trend toward replacement ,the existing IT with new ones which would can communicate with GIS. This GIS-centric evolution of integrated systems is already taking place in most utilities. Inevitably, all the above presented processes are leading to the concept of a data warehouse. This new approach is being currently analyzed by major silesian utilities. Esri SDE is considered to be a strong candidate for building a spatial data warehouse. One should emphasize that the sheer amount of AM/FM GIS data is the driving force behind the data warehouse concept. It suffices to say that 40% of polish power distribution assets are located in the silesian division.
During the past 5 years of AM/FM GIS software development, HSL has gained substantial experience in using Esri tools combined with other software environment (Oracle, Microsoft). All in all, the Esri tools proved to be adequate for the Silesian AM/FM, municipal and regional GIS. The release of MapObjects and ArcView 3.0 greatly facilitates the editing and presentation procedures. The Esri Internet functionality will be tested in Chorzow with the aim of making the spatial data available to the utilities. Mechanisms which we consider are currently missing are: object oriented grouping of features (visible from ArcInfo to MapObjects), an open API to ArcInfo, one uniform spatial and tabular database. Also the handling of some features by ArcStorm (polygons) revealed some quirks. Fortunately, most of these wishes (regarding the state of ArcInfo ver.7.0.4) will be materialized in the next releases of Esri products. Obviously, the need for object oriented features (intelligent grouping) and other mechanisms results from the complexity of utilities modeling. Some devices (e.g. switching devices in power systems or even reconfigurable distribution lines) are exceptionally difficult to model due to their dynamic behaviour. Hence the art of seeking compromise in defining a common model is in great demand. A common model should be sufficient for (e.g.) repairs, SCADA and asset management requirements. Another question which is being raised now is: how 'real-timed' should an AM/FM GIS be, given that SCADA is a widespread commodity among utilities ? There is a growing tendency to view AM/FM GIS as 'core' part of the dispatching system of the utilities companies. It seems that new generation of AM/FM GIS will exhibit more dynamic functionality (in the sense of real-time properties and spatial database reconfigurability) and will be one the first candidates for implementing object oriented databases.
Aleksander Hanslik
President, Hanslik Software Laboratory
ul.Huculska 18
40-736 Katowice
POLAND
tel: +(48) 32 102 38 74, +(48) 32 102 56 98
e-mail: hanslik@silesia.top.pl