Giving the power of GIS to field technicians
William C. Peterson
Manager, GIS Business Alliance and Solution Delivery
Lone Star Pipeline Company 301 S. Harwood Dallas, Texas 75201
T. Michael Seaman
Programmer Analyst,Outfield GIS TM, 11900 Crownpoint Drive
Suite 100 San Antonio, Texas 78233
Abstract
The use of a Geographic Information System to accomplish a field operations task has significant potential
benefits to increase worker productivity. Lone Star Gas Company has completed a pilot project to use their
GIS graphics and data to complete leak surveys and leak reporting, and to integrate the information into an
existing code compliance database. The selection of the appropriate field personnel to test the application
was critical to the project, as well as a team of GIS staff, vendor, IS staff and contract programmers
committed to meet the projects goals. A focus on software development and not hardware was also a key
factor. The use of GIS graphics and data as part of a field application brings to focus the accuracy of
landbase and address information, as well as the accurate mapping of gas facilities, and poses the need for a
redlining tool to make corrections in the field. Based upon the successful completion of this project, Lone
Star plans to implement the application company-wide by the end of 1997.
Company Information
Lone Star Gas serves over 1.3 million customers in over 520 cities and towns in north and central Texas.
Approximately 60’%of the customers are in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex area. The Lone Star Gas
system includes over 22,000 miles of gas mains.
Project Background
In 1993, Lone Star Gas Company’s Distribution Division underwent a full-scale re-engineering effort. One
of the results was the development of a comprehensive code compliance inspection scheduling, tracking
and reporting system. At Lone Star Gas (LSG), the System Monitoring department was formed, with
responsibility for all of the code compliance inspections for the gas distribution system. Since the first
applications were developed for leak survey, leak detection and leak repair, this system became known as
the Lone Star Leak System (LSLS).
In parallel with the LSLS system development, Lone Star Gas had started the conversion of the gas
distribution paper maps to a CAD-based automated mapping system. This conversion was designed to also
capture the attribute data necessary for eventual use in a GIS system. When approximately 20°/0of the gas
mains and services were converted, the System Monitoring department decided to develop a GIS
application that would utilize the intelligent landbase and gas facilities, in order to decrease the amount of
time spent finding and reporting leaks in the field.
Pilot Project
The pilot project goal was to develop an application that would reduce the time spent in the field sketching
and reporting leak locations. During the design stage of the project, the areas of focus were:
- The application should have only the features and menu selections that the technicians would use.
No additional menu options should appear that the technician was to “ignore or not worry about”.
- The software should pass information stored in the landbase to the existing leak management
system.
- Key features should include navigating to specific locations, query of attribute data, and a controlled
sketching environment.
A technician typically spends 15-20 minutes completing each leak report, with most of the time spent
drawing street intersections, street names and addresses, and leak migration patterns. A leak migration
pattern is a map showing the extent that the released gas has traveled underground, based upon gas
concentration readings obtained from probing the ground at several locations. Using this method, the
technician is able to pinpoint the location of the source of the leak. The extent of the leak migration is one
indication as to the degree of hazard that the leak poses.
Work Process
The LSG code compliance technician is a multi-functional worker that performs several code compliance
surveys and inspections that are required by the Department of Transportation and the Texas Railroad
Commission. The technician’s work includes leak surveys, cathodic protection surveys, regulator and
pressure relief valve inspections, emergency valve inspections, odorant test points inspections, and patro
areas. The LSLS applications have been developed to manage the back-office functions for scheduling,
tracking, and reporting for leak surveys, cathodic protection surveys, odorant test point inspections, and
emergency valve inspections. The LSLS currently allows the field technician to fax-in forms that are read
by specialized software, to update the central database with completed leak survey, leak detection, and leak
repair information.
The focus of the pilot project was to make the field technicians more productive in the leak survey process.
The current process involves:
- LSLS is used to track and schedule the leak survey jobs.
- A leak survey work order is printed from the system and given to the technician.
- The technician surveys the area designated by the work order, and makes up a leak report form for
each leak that is found on the LSG distribution piping.
- The leak form is a pre-printed form with bubble fields and character recognition fields that is faxed-in,
and then validated by software at the central server.
- A staff assistant will then review any faxed-in forms that are rejected by the system, and process it
for correction of the errors.
- LSLS generates a repair order that is electronically routed to the service center of the work crew
assigned to the area in which the leak was found.
We also expected to achieve some back-office time savings, as the error correction process for the faxed-in
forms would be eliminated.
