Case Studies: Pipeline Inspection, Surveying and Mapping

Case Studies: Pipeline Inspection, Surveying and Mapping

Interested in Infrastructure?

Get Infrastructure articles, news and videos right in your inbox! Sign up now.

Infrastructure + Get Alerts

Map-based project coordination

Problem

The City of Baltimore managed its water and sewer projects by poring over spreadsheets at long meetings, then followed up with emails and phone calls that often led to additional meetings. “We had too many meetings and static data with no way to visualize what was happening in specific locations,” says Margaret B. Martin, P.E., division chief III in the Department of General Services.

 

Solution

A colleague introduced Martin to the Envista R2 2010 map-based project coordination program from Envista Corp. The software enables the city to map its infrastructure projects and manage them in a dynamic, Web-based environment. The online map lets engineers see where each project is planned or where repairs are being made and immediately identify conflicts with other entities in the public right-of-way.

By mapping and coordinating its projects, the city can avoid overlapping street work that could lead to multiple street cuts and costly paving. With the application’s public view capability, the city can post project maps on its website with street closures and detours to alleviate congestion and improve public service.

 

Result

Based on an analysis of key factors such as conflicts and opportunities, the city realized $390,000 in paving cost savings to date and projects a total cost savings of more than $900,000 per year. 978/232-6300; www.envista.com.

 

Management suite improves production, efficiency

Problem

The Cucamonga Valley Water District in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., used paper atlases and file cards to manage assets, but the makeshift systems were not conducive to smooth, efficient operations. “We wanted a system that leveraged GIS data, while being the most useful to our field employees,” says Darron Poulsen, customer services officer. “Since all the staff would use the program, we made sure everyone was involved in its selection.”

 

Solution

The Cityworks suite contains Desktop, Anywhere, Server AMS, Designer, and Storeroom. Cityworks Desktop, an easy-to-use, map-based work management tool, enables maintenance and operations personnel to capture and respond to customer concerns, create and track work orders, and conduct inspections and tests on assets.

Cityworks Anywhere incorporates the Esri ArcGIS engine, embedding common GIS tools in a light, portable framework. It is suited for field, remote, and mobile users. Cityworks Server AMS, a browser-based system, manages assets, issues service requests and work orders, performs inspections, and manages customer needs.

Designer allows administrators to configure and customize the software. With Storeroom, users can manage material, supplier, and requisition information including issuing, receiving, transferring, auditing, and searching transactions.

 

Result

The district implemented the application in 2008 to manage wastewater collection, backflow prevention, water distribution, water meters, reservoir storage, buildings and facilities. Field crews use it to route and manage work more efficiently. They submit service requests and work orders to foremen via BlackBerry phones, facilitating inspections and maintenance while management easily views their progress. “Cityworks helped organize the workload, making our employees more efficient and productive,” says Todd Corbin, assistant general manager. 801/523-2751; www.cityworks.com.

 

Improved records management

Problem

The City of Olympia, Wash., has an extensive stormwater management program. Staff manually entered inspections into databases and archived the reports. Managing the paperwork was laborious and time consuming. David Kuhn, GIS business manager, wanted to move into a Web-based workflow that seamlessly tied inspection data to GIS features for mapping and visualization.

 

Solution

Kuhn chose VUEWorks software, enabling the city to query the stormwater assets to be inspected. City staff developed customized work order forms for city and private storm system assets. Workers visit sites based on a logical inspection route map and use cellular data connections to complete inspection work orders in the field.

The software creates a parent work order for the overall inspection. Then child work orders are completed for each asset at an inspection site. Child work orders have inspection forms with standard language for corrective measures. The parent work order captures the total cost to inspect the site, and the child work orders capture the total cost to inspect individual assets.

Workers can print inspection forms and leave them with the owners of private systems. They also can provide a GIS map of all the structures needing inspection and forms for entering the inspection data. When the inspection results are returned to the city, the paperwork order is keyed into VUEWorks.

 

Result

Because the work orders allow the attachment of individual assets, the inspection history is geospatially enabled in the VUEWorks database. Selecting a stormwater feature in the map reveals its work order history, which sites are the most costly, which take the longest time to inspect, and which have failing and functioning assets. 800/252-2402; www.vueworks.com.



Discussion

Comments on this site are submitted by users and are not endorsed by nor do they reflect the views or opinions of COLE Publishing, Inc. Comments are moderated before being posted.