BIM 360
by: Zach Jaffe
Digital Twins A Geospatial Approach to Asset Management
A
sset management is a crucial aspect of water and wastewater system management. Whether responding to an emergency leak, following an annual maintenance schedule, or planning a facility upgrade, it is critical to identify each asset and where it is located. For over a decade, water and wastewater utilities have used point clouds and building information models (BIM) to document existing conditions. Now, with advancements in LIDAR, BIM, GIS, and asset management software, incorporating 3D data into GIS is possible. Previously, indoor or vertical assets, like pipes and valves inside a wastewater treatment plant, were difficult to locate. Using the GIS platform, these assets can be accurately modeled and viewed. Asset information kept on thirty-year-old coffeestained plans buried in a drawer or stored in an Excel document can be replaced with a GIS model that identifies each asset’s physical location on a 3D map with the associated asset information or attributes. These 3D GIS models that represent the world conditions in the digital environment are known as a Digital Twin. 12
AUGIWORLD Magazine | May 2022
Water and wastewater utilities are a prime example of an industry where integrating BIM with GIS improve their asset and facility management and field operations has been embraced and implemented.
BIM-GIS BACKGROUND Water and wastewater utilities have been utilizing point clouds and building information models (BIM) to document existing conditions for refabrication projects, re-designs, and upgrades, due to the combination of aging infrastructure and increase of demand with growing populations. The point clouds and BIM models have drastically changed these projects by giving the designers more accurate data to work with from the start. With MM accuracy, point clouds deliver precise measurements (instead of going out with pen, paper, and a tape measure). With the BIM, change orders have drastically been cut down by 70-90%, saving projects thousands of dollars and keeping them on schedule. augi.com
