Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach County/Enterprise GIS use case findings and recommendations

In late February 2008, SWA representatives and G&O's design team met with the objective of determining opportunities to improve utility asset management using GIS and related technology. This article summarizes those sessions' findings and recommends next steps for the Authority. It also includes a recommended phased approach for maintaining and migrating Atlas system data to the GIS.

Methodology
Starting top-down, study participants articulated the SWA Utility group's responsibilities, services and customers. Next, they identified existing information sources and technology resources necessary to support business processes. They then surfaced deficiencies and barriers that interfere with utility operations and ability to provide services.

Building upon this initial discovery process, utility group business drivers--aligned with SWA's organizational strategy--were envisioned by the group. Finally, high level Use Cases were specified, translating business strategy into actionable steps.

The use cases provide information necessary to design a geodatabase structure and deliver software that supports the Utility group's priorities. G&O will migrate SWA-approved contents of the AutoCAD Atlas into the ESRI geodatabase. The SWA may also choose to proceed with development/configuration of applications under a separate task.

Responsibilities
The Utility group is responsible for maintaining, monitoring and protecting all SWA utility assets at the North County Resource Recovery Facility (NCRRF). Utility staff's mission-critical duties for the SWA include:


 * Maintain a comprehensive record of utility asset locations, conditions and attributes
 * Continuously collect permit compliance-related measurements
 * Locate and adjust asset controls in the field
 * Guide construction activities at the facility
 * Perform preventative maintenance on assets
 * Respond during events and crises

Environmental Programs, the Executive Department and other SWA groups' business activities depend upon Utilities performing their duties accurately and timely.

Information Sources
A number of information sources and systems used by the Utilities group were identified discovery process, including:


 * SCADA gas monitoring system
 * Leachate system components (video inspected and jet cleaned periodically at one year or five year intervals)
 * Well monitoring
 * Flare skid
 * Injection well
 * Weather station
 * Interceptor system (groundwater quality monitoring)
 * Methane sweeps (conducted over entire landfill on quarterly basis)

Business Challenges
Participants identified a number of deficiencies that introduce inefficiencies, raise costs and pose threats to SWA utility assets:


 * Contractors digging and hitting underground utilities
 * Difficulty locating assets in the field that are damaged or buried/covered
 * Difficulty locating spare parts in storage
 * Lack of single authoritative source of utilities as-built location information
 * Inability to organize into one place related facility content: CADD, structured maintenance, free text and rich information (images, pdf's, documents)
 * Errors introduced through manual transcription processes
 * Inability to access or update utility asset and maintenance record information while in the field
 * Inconsistent color marking utilities in the field
 * Difficulty accessing source information (engineering drawings, permits, manufacturer specifications)

Business Drivers
Five priority business drivers emerged during the design session that supports the Utility group's processes. During a brainstorming session these were elaborated into lists of actors and use cases. The following table summarizes the Utility group's priorities along with links to high level use cases where appropriate.

Recommendations
The recomended next steps that follow are the result of information collected during the design sessions, high level use cases associated with Protect utility assets and Preventative maintenance programs and conclusions drawn from analysis of these facts. Proceeding with these recommendations will organize and provide access to utility asset information in useful forms. In turn, this will enable the SWA Utilities group to maintain utility assets in good working order, prevent damage from construction activities and comply with reporting regulations.


 * 1) Organize SWA's utility asset information
 * 2) Define common semantic information model and vocabulary for utility assets
 * 3) Identify information sources inside SWA and over the Internet
 * 4) Enable support for information in various forms, including: GIS, images, rich documents, structured and free text
 * 5) Build comprehensive GIS utility database for NCRRF
 * 6) Populate content not included in SWA's Altas file
 * 7) Transform Atlas content into GIS geodatabase
 * 8) Access distributed information sources inside SWA and over the Internet
 * 9) Use semantic relationships (e.g.; 'regulated by', 'inspection date', 'location coordinates', etc.) to link utility assets and extended information content (permits, utility maintenance records, equipment specs and operation manual content)
 * 10) Provide access to SWA's utility asset information
 * 11) Elaborate Use Cases for Prevantative Maintenance Programs and Protecting Utility assets
 * 12) Design and build services, based on priority Use Cases, that enable utility information access in useful forms through existing SWA technology, purchase and development
 * 13) Acquire mobile devices for SWA utility operators, maintenance workers and other staff to access utility content
 * 14) Update SWA business processes to gain improvement opportunities introduced
 * 15) Extend SWA utility information access to engineering, construction and maintenance contractors
 * 16) Modify business processes and construction contract language to use new GIS resources before digging

Maintaining the Utilities Database
The Atlas CADD file is a composite reference drawing of NCRRF assets compiled from construction design and as-built drawings. Atlas features include:


 * Planimetrics such as landfill cells, building footprints, roads, water bodies
 * Surface and subsurface utilities, including: valves, wells, pumps, pump stations, pipes, power cables, communications lines, water supply lines, sewer collection lines
 * Orthophoto reference imagery

Given the project plan to convert Atlas features to a utilities GIS database, questions arose during the study about how best to continue recording additions and updates to those features. Should SWA maintain two databases, one in Atlas and another in ArcGIS? Should SWA continue to record changes in the Atlas and devise some new process to periodically update the GIS? Should SWA move all content to the GIS and discontinue the Atlas?

When considering these alternatives, the following factors help illuminate an optimal strategy:


 * As an operating landfill, some areas of the NCRRF site experience regular change while others have stabilized. The utility assets in this pilot project are located within the stable area where geometry information is more complete.
 * The SWA presently has a business process to maintain asset information in the Atlas system, but not in ArcGIS.
 * The ArcGIS database design is expected to use advanced topologic and attribute structures not available in the CADD environment. Features that take advantage of these GIS structures will require special processing and quality control procedures each time content is transformed from the Atlas format.

Based on these factors, G&O recommends a phased transition from Atlas to GIS for the near term. Under this scenario SWA will convert the gas and leachate utility point and line features in the pilot project area to ArcGIS format. As part of this transformation, topology will be added to the geometry and attributes populated according to Utilities ArcGIS geodatabase design specifications. The GIS will become the authority source for these features. Significant updates to feature geometry aren't expected, but if changes do occur, they will be recorded in both the GIS and Atlas.

As part of this process, additional Atlas drawing layers will be transformed into GIS features for reference purposes. However, aside from ensuring correct spatial placement and assignment to proper feature types, they will be subjected to minimal post-processing. The Atlas will continue to be the authority source for these features with a process defined for periodic transform/update to refresh the GIS database. Over longer term, G&O recommends SWA transition all geographic features from the Atlas to the GIS database.

This recommended phased approach will enable SWA's Utility group to quickly realize added value by proceeding with business process and application improvements while data migration and maintenance details for non-utility GIS features are worked out.

Resources

 * Protect utility assets Use Cases
 * Preventative maintenance programs Use Cases
 * Use case brainstorming
 * Discovery