CMMS-GIS-article

CMMS/GIS

Taking the Worry Out of Water-Sewer-Storm Operations

by M. K. Vander Werff

Ms. Vander Werff has reported on business, economic, and technology issues for Nation’s Business, Entrepreneur, and a variety of trade journals.

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ach morning, millions of Americans turn the knob on the sink. Water flows. We brush. Flush. Shower. Shave. And for those of us not involved in the water, sewer, or stormwater industries (and not the unlucky recipient of recent floods), chances are we don’t bat an eye at the luxury of clean, abundant water from the tap. Odds are we don’t give a second thought to water flowing unencumbered down our drains.

But those who are involved in water-sewer-storm operations know the value of every potable drop, every unfettered flush. It’s their job to worry about what most Americans take for granted.

Geographic information system (GIS) technology is removing some of that worry while setting new standards for maintenance and customer service operations. And there are other benefits: For the Kenton County Water Service District, it also means making the merger with a neighboring water utility a smooth one. For Tennessee’s Nashville Metro Water Services, it means helping pinpoint and prevent water loss. For the cities of Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Greensboro, North Carolina, it means meeting — or exceeding — a federal stormwater mandate.

And while a GIS is nothing new, maximizing GIS benefits is uncharted territory into which these communities — and many others nationwide — are just now venturing forth. “In the early years of geographic information system technology, just getting a basic GIS was the priority for many communities, never mind the uses beyond simple inventorying and mapping functions. But today, municipalities’ needs are more complex, and GIS uses span a broader spectrum. Simply put, communities know the GIS has to be taken to its next logical level, or it’s just a pretty map,” said Paul Klimas, Project Manager, GIS Division, Woolpert, a civil engineering and GIS firm headquartered in Dayton, Ohio. continued on next page

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In other words, a GIS is not a solution in itself. It requires application in three additional stages: Information Management (computer maintenance management systems, or CMMS), Model Simulation/Data Analysis, and ultimately, Strategic Planning. This article focuses on Information Management.

The Segue Into CMMS

Prioritization Pr ograms Programs Ar Aree Useful For: • potable and reclaimed water mains • sewer mains and manholes • lift stations • wells • reclaimed storage ponds • pump stations • potable and reclaimed service lines and sewer laterals • valves • hydrants • meters and meter boxes

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During the first stage of the GIS process, a digitized graphical representation of the water, sewer, or stormwater network is created; basic attribute information is included; and source documents are scanned into the system for reference. No small feat.

But it quickly becomes not enough.

Enter the next stage, the point at which the GIS truly “fleshes out” with detailed information — information that is used to build a CMMS, and ultimately, information that is used in modeling and strategic planning.

It’s at the information management stage that detailed data from the scanned source documents (atlases, asbuilts, strip maps) are populated in the GIS and CMMS; in-the-field data collection may occur; and a complete inventory of warehoused items is undertaken.

“Size, material, age, rim and invert elevations, complaint and maintenance histories, address information — what you have, where you have it, and the condition it’s in — this is the information needed at the CMMS stage,” Klimas explained. “The GIS is no longer just spatial; it now has intelligence imbedded in each structure.”

In other words, the GIS becomes a virtual representation of the water,

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sewer or stormwater network. And it evolves as new information becomes available.

Gathering this kind of data seemed a daunting task for the Kenton County Water Service District. It had 2,500 strip maps that needed to be input in the GIS — and that number would increase substantially when the utility merged with neighboring Campbell County to become the Northern Kentucky Water Service District (NKWSD).

Woolpert designed a customized, mass-inputting tool for NKWSD to digitize graphic and nongraphic data simultaneously: Information about water mains, meters, hydrants, and valves are entered in the GIS and the nongraphic attribution is placed automatically in the CMMS — a timeand money-saving procedure.

“We knew we wanted an integrated automated mapping/facilities management system,” said Mary Alexander, Engineering Technician, NKWSD. “What we got was something really quite revolutionary: total systems integration, a turnkey solution to the double-inputting dilemma.”

Nashville Metro Water Services (MWS) also wanted a GIS that simultaneously populated the CMMS. “We wanted to put the same water and sewer information in a package that would be convenient for everyone to

use — maintenance crews, customer service representatives, and engineers,” said Bob Wingo, P.E., Assistant Director of Engineering, MWS. The Nashville utility had begun the process several years ago but was creating the GIS and CMMS separately. “Then,” said Wingo, “we figured, wouldn’t it be better to kill two birds with one stone?” As a result, Woolpert is now designing a system similar to NKWSD’s for MWS. The cities of Virginia Beach and Greensboro are going a step further in their stormwater-infrastructure data quests: Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite surveying methods are being used to collect information in the field, including the location, size, condition, flooding potential, and maintenance priority of each structure.

“The data is input on top of photogrammetric maps loaded on pen-based laptop computers,” Woolpert GIS Director Steve Phipps explained.

“We’re literally creating a GIS in the field.”

In addition to GPS, Greensboro is using digital photography to gather data about its stormwater structures.

Each digitally photographed image will be linked by an identification number to a database. The digital photographs will facilitate future maintenance applications.

Proactive Maintenance

What A CMMS Can Do • provide a chronological history of all activities and wo orders performed within the water system • forecast maintenance work-load requirements • maintain a record of all water line leaks or breaks • allow users to record water-system-component condi flow results, and pressure tests • provide a complete customer-complaint reporting sys capable of interfacing with the GIS • allow for generation, storage, and retrieval of custom correspondence • record labor, material, and equipment costs associate all maintenance, repairs, and complaint-handling acti and report these costs in user-defined reports through comprehensive cost-maintenance system • provide complete physical-inventory reports

Indeed, maintenance is the main reason each of these four communities brought their GIS into CMMS. Because better maintenance means proactively identifying and preventing problems such as water main breaks, backedup pipes, sanitary sewer overflows, or polluted surface runoff. And preventing problems means saving money — the No. 1 issue with utilities because grants for repairs are drying up.

In the late 1960s, total federal, state, and local government investment in public works was 2.3 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). As we approach 2000, the investment has plunged to only 0.8 percent of GDP. And compared to water and sewer utilities, stormwater systems — the “forgotten utility” — haven’t gotten much of a slice of the already slim funding pie.

All the while, infrastructure has been aging. The National Council on Public Works Improvement in the late 1980s gave the nation’s water systems a “B-” grade, and wastewater systems received a collective “C.” NKWSD is taking a proactive approach with a main replacement prioritization program created by Woolpert. Based on information in the CMMS, the program queries information about pipes (age, maintenance history, material, etc.), assigns a point value to each pipe based on this criteria, and color-codes the pipes based on total point accumulation (for example, if a pipe is red, it’s probably time to replace it).

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“The program helps identify problems down the road and offers a window of opportunity to plan for and perform preventive maintenance or replacement before disaster occurs. You can better assess your risks and schedule capital improvements planning,” Woolpert GIS Department Manager Ken Chaffman said.

Prioritization programs are not limited to water mains, of course. A CMMS/GIS can also manage a valveexercising agenda, as well as provide replacement scheduling for a host of other water, sewer, and stormwater structures (see sidebar, page 2).

“Replacement scheduling is a key benefit of a CMMS/GIS, because it means utilities can save money by not making unnecessary patch-repairs if a structure is planned to be replaced anyway,” Woolpert Project Manager Rick Hammond said. “By querying the CMMS/GIS, users could discover that immediately replacing, not repairing, the failing structure would be the most cost-effective action to take.”

The CMMS/GIS also means that utilities can “piggyback” additional repairs with already-scheduled or even

unscheduled maintenance activities.

For example, Nashville MWS recently shut down its Omohundro Water Treatment Plant for several days to replace a 36-inch isolation valve. The CMMS/GIS could tell maintenance crews that other plant valves were scheduled to replaced in the near future, letting MWS take advantage of the down-time to make the additional replacements.

CMMS/GIS-based work-order processing is another maintenance need of the four municipalities, enabling better cost-, materials-, and personnel-management. When a customer calls with a complaint, the customer service representative will be able to identify the caller’s address through the CMMS/GIS, record the nature of the complaint into the system (i.e., “Discolored water at 225 Elm St.”), and then route the complaint to the appropriate maintenance area. From that point, maintenance management and crews will be able to prioritize each complaint, set a work schedule for the day, print out a locator map, even access the CMMS about inventory available to complete the job. The work-order system can be as detailed as offering an outline of task and safety procedures, and the equipment, time, and manpower needed to complete a specific job.

NKWSD plans to use its workorder system to download locationand structure-specific information to field-based computers, which will be used by crews to make repairs or upgrades in the field. The crews will then record their work into the computers, which will in turn be used to update the CMMS/GIS databases.

Status reports will be generated daily.

The ability to graphically track the nature of each complaint will have the

benefit of identifying larger problems, such as water loss. Most communities experience at least 10 percent water loss, and in some major cities, it runs as high as 30 percent, according to the American Water Works Association.

Metro Water Services’ Bob Wingo explained a possible “sleuthing” process to track water loss: “Say we get a lot of complaints for low water pressure — a sign of water loss — concentrated in a certain area. The GIS will provide a graphical representation of this problem and help us zero in on the culprits, which are probably leaking pipes.”

Fire hydrants are also sources of unaccounted-for water loss. Wingo said that by connecting fire stations to the CMMS/GIS, firefighters could enter the time of day they turn on a hydrant and when they turn it off, allowing MWS to calculate exact gallons per minute expended from each hydrant.

Meeting government mandates is another reason for creating a CMMS/GIS. Approximately 720 communities with populations of 100,000+ have established stormwater utilities and have been required to obtain Environmental Protection Agency permits continued on page 5

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under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Act of 1987.

“The federal government is mandating that mid-size to large cities — Virginia Beach and Greensboro among them — lay out a ‘game plan’ of how they propose to control pollutants flowing into streams and rivers,” Woolpert Director of Water Resources Clarence Robbins explained.

Although NPDES requirements vary on a case-by-case basis, many cities with the permits are charged with mapping and inventorying stormwater structures, including collecting enough attribute information about each structure to perform hydraulic and hydrologic modeling. Failure to comply can result in heavy fines.

Woolpert is conducting a pilot project for Virginia Beach that focuses on the city’s Euclid Industrial Park area, with eventual plans for a citywide CMMS/GIS. The 60-acre industrial property, built in the early 1960s before today’s more stringent development guidelines, is home to a number of automotive shops and propane distributors. The potential is high for hazardous substances to be caught in the flow of surface and stormwater runoff. And it is believed

that there are a number of illegal tapins to the stormwater system. The CMMS/GIS will help identify illicit connections to the stormwater system, locate all infrastructure, and prepare the way for modeling. “We’re getting a complete inventory, and we’re going to be able to identify point sources of pollution. Having these abilities will help us meet NPDES requirements and be proactive in redevelopment of the area,” said Karl Smithson, Civil Engineer, Department of Public Works, city of Virginia Beach.

Greensboro, meanwhile, is an area booming with new development. The GIS being created for the city by Woolpert will be a “central tool” for handling maintenance, master planning, and NPDES requirements, according to Scott D. Bryant, P.E., Stormwater Services Engineer, city of Greensboro. “The GIS database and applications will allow the city to move toward proactive stormwater and flood plain management, in addition to an improved infrastructure maintenance program,” Bryant said.

MWS also has a mandate to comply with, this one from the Tennessee State Department of Health and Environment. In March 1990 the agency issued an order requiring extensive studies of sewer problems and the development of a plan in which MWS could meet the schedule for elimination of sewer overflows. “We’ll definitely benefit from the CMMS/GIS to help meet this state mandate. Without it, we would lack focus. With it, we will know which parts of our sewer system demand first priority,” Wingo said.

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Superior Service Keeping customers happy is another goal of Virginia Beach, Greensboro, NKWSD, and MWS. A CMMS/GIS will help the utilities handle customer complaints and track resolution of these complaints.

For example, a service representative dealing with a residential customer complaining about low water pressure could view the GIS and have at his fingertips a visual picture of the

caller’s location and maintenance activities occurring in the vicinity.

Instead of issuing a work-order to investigate the complaint, the service representative could immediately inform the caller of the nearby maintenance activities causing the water-pressure problem and assure the caller that the condition would be temporary. Even better, the CMMS/GIS could produce letters addressed to specific customers informing them of maintenance activities before work begins.

“What this stage of the GIS boils down to is better service and better maintenance through better information management. The benefits are real: priorities can be set objectively, work is not duplicated, money is saved, and the public is better served,” Woolpert’s Paul Klimas said.

Taking the worry out of where our water comes from and where it goes — now that’s something millions of Americans won’t take for granted.

1.800.414.1045 http://www.woolpert.com Offices throughout the United States gis@woolpert.com

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