GISdevelopment.net ---> GITA 1997 ---> User Project Presentations

Successfully integrating multiple utilities and supporting technologies

Scott Dahlstrom
Maps and Records Supervisor, Jackson Utility Division
185 Meadow, Jackson TN 38302
(901 ) 422-7390
(901 ) 422-7584 (fax)
sdahlstr@jud.com

Adley Harms
Senior Consultant
UGC Consulting, 6200 S. Syracuse Way, Suite 222
Englewood, Colorado 80111
(303) 773-6166, (303) 773-6618
Adley.Harms@cvg-grp.com



Abstract
Although your utility may serve 50,000 customers rather than 500,000, its GIS can be every bit as sophisticated and productive as that of the larger utilities. The GIS being implemented at Jackson (Term.) Utility Division (which serves residents of Jackson and Madison County mid-way between Nashville and Memphis) illustrates the point. The GIS being implemented at JUD includes core utility GIS functionality and is fully integrated with the Customer Information System (CIS) residing on an IBM AS/400. The presentation wil I offer an overview of the GIS and related technologies at JUD, and will review the system’s functionality as it is configured for four differentutilities electric, gas, water, and wastewater. The presentation will also review the processes behind implementing a project of this scale, including developing executive support, addressing funding considerations, leveraging existing technology investments, and achieving “big system”objectives at a smaller scale.

Introduction
Jackson Utility Division OLJD) bawd in Jackson,Tennessee,is a municipal utility that provides service to 28,000 electric, 22,000 gas, 27,000 water, and 22,000 wastewater customers. Jackson Utility Division’s vision is that its GIS wil I become the information technology “nerve center” of JUD’S operation, not just an engineering mapping tool. In other words, GIS will be the enabling technology that will help all JUD departments improve their ability to achieve their mission of providing safe, reliable, and cost-effective utility setvices to the Madison County community. JUD’S vision for GIS extends beyond the utility division to include the City ofjackson and Madison County. In fact, ) UD envisions the GIS as expanding to be the geographic and facility recordkeeping system for all City and County users. Clearly, this is a “big utility” system in every sense of the word. In fact, JUD management identified the following as major objectives of GIS:

  • GIS must improve productivity
  • GIS must provide a corporate-wide solution to facilities mapping and recordkeeping problems, reduce data redundancy and improve corporate data access using PCs
  • GIS full implementation must be proven to be cost-justified
  • GIS must support the achievement of the following corporate goals:

    • Improve the quality of customer service
    • Lower operating costs
    • Remain competitive in an open access market
    • Improve the integration of corporate data and allow transparent GIS access to data
    • on the existing AS/400 system
    • Maintain a stable financial position
    • Maintain system reliability, quality and safety of services and products and improve the utilization of assets

  • GIS must provide quick access to current facilities and work-related data for emergency and daily work decision support
  • GIS should help JUD avoid certain costs
  • GIS must help provide for regulatory compliance
  • GIS should demonstrate enough functionality to result in a commitment from the City and the County to join JUD in the development of a common GIS that eliminates the existing duplicate mapping efforts and improves communications between JUD, the City, and the County
From a technical perspective, JUD’S GIS is a UNIX-based solution that integrates the gdsNe~M GIS and network modeling software from Graphic Data SystemsCorporation, with Oracle as the attribute data repository. The GDS and Oracle software reside on seven HP workstations which are used as data and GIS compute servers. PCs access the GIS using Reflections X-window emu Iation software. The electric, gas, water, and wastewater faci Iities data, converted by MSE Corporation, is placed relative to an accurate county-wide, 550-square-mile, digital orthophotography landbase created by Analytical Surveys, Inc. using airborne GPS technology. The Iandbase is, on average, accurate to within 3 feet absolute accuracy in urban areas and 7 feet in rural areas. The Oracle Gateway product provides the software link to the customer, meter, and work management data stored on JUD’S IBM AS/400. Corporate-wide access to GIS and other corporate systems is extended via Ethernet and token-ring local area networks (LANs) and a fiber-optic wide-are network (WAN).

Core software configuration provides the GIS basics of land and facility data maintenance, system navigation, mapping, reporting, data query, and job management. Existing custom software includes batch plotting, address range to map number reports, work sketch generation, work design and estimating, subdivision file import (DXF) and geopositioning, and several data maintenance forms. Future plans call for developing trouble call entry and display applications and integrating with JUD’S SCADA and three separate engineering analysis programs (Stoner, Cybernet, Windmil). Management consulting, software configuration, and application customization were completed by UGC Consulting.

A small utility can spend nearly as much or more money per customer as a large utility to implement GIS system functionality. Therefore it is imperative that a small utility carefully examine what it truly needs and what provides the most benefits, as opposed to what it would like to have. The process followed by J(JD in implementing GIS focused from the very beginning on corporate-wide user and management requirements and financial and strategic business goals. JUD’S phased GIS implementation process is as follows:
  • Conduct a Feasibility Study
  • Implement a Pilot Project
  • Full Implementation
  • Initial focus on data conversion, data maintenance, and GIS basic functionality
  • Implement functionality that addresses key business needs
A Multi-Phased Approch

The Feasibility Study
The process to implement GIS at JUD was a phased approach that began with a feasibility study from February to August 1993. Through the study, the business case for undertaking GIS was laid out, including how business is done without GIS, what specific areas can be improved through the technology, and what benefits can be expected. All of these elements needed to be quantified as precisely as possible.

Preparing a feasibility study is really an exercise in grass-rootssupport building for a GIS project. It involves interviewing potential key user groups, management, executives, and information system personnel. Education is also a critical objective for the feasibility study in that key users and management must understand what GIS is and how it can affect their jobs and the corporation as a whole.

Prior to the interview process, JUD conducted a company-wide GIS technology and project education presentation. After the education session, key users in engineering, operations, construction/maintenance, as well as “peripheral user groups” including customer service representatives and accounting personnel were interviewed. Through the interviews and a series of workshops, the GIS project team learned what each user group’s job functions are, explored how GIS might affect that work, and examined areas where GIS can improve work processes. The interview process results in a set of high-level requirements that form the basis for an implementation plan.

The feasibility study at JUD concluded that the project appeared justified—at least on paper. The feasibility study generated management support and funding for the next phase of the project implementation: the Pilot Phase.

The Pilot Phase
The importance of the Pilot Phase comes into focus when one realizes that roughly 20 percent of a project’s overall budget may be earmarked for pilot development, as was the case at JUD. This type of expenditure was justified in that the Pilot Project was designed to test the validity of many of the assumptions laid out in the feasibility study. JUD carefully designed the Pilot study to accomplish the following objectives:
  • Validate, on a small scale, feasibility study assumptions considered of primaty importance including:

    • Implementation costs based on bids
    • Hard benefit assumptions
    • Strategic benefits
    • Implementation plan

  • Develop and refine JUD’S data preparation (scrub) procedures
  • Refine data conversion procedures
  • Refine the database design by demonstrating functionality to JUD users, management, executives, and city/county personnel
After management approval, JUD initiated the Pilot Project in October 1993. JUD’S multi-disciplined GIS Project Team focused on the objectives and made a concerted effort not to expand or change the carefully planned scope of work. The Pilot project culminated in three days of extensive GIS demonstrations in December 1994 after 15 months of Pilot development. Prior to and immediately after the demonstrations, the JUD Project Team studied the results of the Pilot project by performing time and motion studies for productivity benefits determination, revising the cost5enefit analysis using actual costs, bids, and revised benefit measurements and estimates, and interviewing executives and management to determine whether they felt GIS could help JUD achieve the predetermined objectives.

After careful study, the Pilot GIS was found capable of achieving key project objectives such as:
  • Improving labor productivity to a higher degree than envisioned and estimated in the feasibility study
  • Improving asset utilization and decision support mechanisms
  • Maintaining utility system reliability
  • Helping meet regulato~ requirements
  • Demonstrating the abi Iity to interface and integrate GIS with the AS/400 customer information and work management systemswithout the duplication of data
  • Demonstrating PC access to GIS, AS/400, and PC applications
  • Demonstrating the effective consolidation of JUD’S 30-plus manual conversion sources
  • Demonstrating basic AM/FM functionality such as land and facility data maintenance, plotting, data @cry, and system navigation along with a number of prototype custom functionality such as work design and gas network isolation Full ln@meWWl .
Full Implementation
JUD executives approved full implementation in January 1995, 16 months after the Pilot was initiated. The implementation plan for full implementation, revised from the Feasibility study during the Pilot Project, initially focused on the following tasks:
  • Enhancing/revising core functionality based on Pilot findings and user input
  • Data conversion
  • GIS user training - primarily data maintenance and system access/query
  • Data acceptance testing, data validation, and quality control
Data conversion was seen as the critical path to completing the entire project, therefore, considerable emphasis was placed on these processes. The conversion strategy involved converting the low to moderate growth areas first, minimizing the work order posting required after a specific area of data was accepted. Once the accelerated data preparation, data conversion, and data acceptance testing processes were working wel 1,JUD’S project focus changed to the fo Ilowing tasks:
  • More GIS user training - primarily data maintenance and system access/query
  • Refining custom application and interface specifications
  • Enhancing the Oracle Gateway to the AS/400
  • Maintaining two recordkeeping systems during conversion (GIS for accepted areas and pre-GIS systemsfor areas not converted)
By mid 1996, conversion was roughly 40 percent complete, and JUD’S GIS data maintenance software and processes were beginning to come to fruition. JUD finished posting the work orders and began replacing existing manual systemswith GIS in those areas where data had been accepted. The process of refining the application specifications included involving JUD

Table1: GIS Productivity Improvement
* plotting standard maps on GIS can be done as a batch process which does not require the full POSt-Pilot time.

The plot can be sentand picked up later. While paper mapscould be more easiIy duplicated using large-format copiers, the GIS system allows for the production of geographically accurate color maps that depict multiple levels of data and detail.

personnel from other departments that were not originally part of the Project Team. Not unlike most user-driven projects, the application specification process resulted in requirements that required more money to develop than JUD had remainingin its implementationbudget. The painful processof prioritizing application developmentfocusedon core requirementsthat each of the four utilities (electric,gas,water, wastewater)needed,then branchedinto utility specific applications. Once prioritized, application developmentwas completed.

The Issue of Reengineering
GIS came at an opportune time at JUD. Immediately after the Feasibility Study, the utility began transitioning from an organization organized by uti Iity (electric, gas, water, wastewater) to a functional organization (engineering, operations, C&M, etc.). Based on this reorganization and the related need to revise processes, the environment was right to change business processes even further by implementing GIS.

The process of defining applications also involved discussing and revising the way certain processes were accomplished. In some cases, the JUD project team defined a workflow diagram and projected how data and work-flow procedures would change with the new technology. For example, the GIS eliminated the need for redundant data entry, meaning that some personnel could be reassigned to other tasks and that people or departments could take on additional responsibilities.

EqualIy beneficial is the standardization of processesthat have occurred across all four utilities and wil I continue to add benefits to JUD over time. Already there has been significant cross-training with an emphasis on people learning more about activities outside of their specific area of responsibility.

Data sharing requirements and protocols have never been a major issue at JUD. As the system has been deployed and as users have grown familiar with it, groups of users have been authorized to perform different things to different data. For example, water department personnel may edit, draft and change data related to the water network. Electrical engineers, although they have access to the same data, cannot make changes to water department data. This is in keeping with the system’s objective to make data more available to anyone who needs it, while retaining data security and integrity.

Work design, estimating, and posting is another area where dramatic change have taken place. In the past, work sketches were created using manual or CAD drafting practices and then manually entering the construction units into the AS/400 work estimating system. Now job design work is completed on GIS, including importing DXF subdivision data, creating the job sketch and laying out all its component parts of the job. Furthermore, throughout the approval cycle, supervisors and engineers are able to red-line and change the system design. The job’s construction units are digitally fed to the AS/400 system for job estimating and materials management.

Although a manual plot of the work sketch still is used by construction people in the field, those who are tracking the status of the work are able to do so using the GIS. Then, as red-line drafts come back to the central office, changes can readily be made. Since the jobs were designed in the GIS, after the jobs have been built and the sketchesmarkedwith the as-builts,the processof postingthe data to the masterGIS databasecan occur in a more timely fashion than before. The work design, estimating, and posting process alone is expected to have a major positive impact on customer service. In the past, a customer service representative had to thumb through plat books to find customer location and then estimate the cost to extend service. Using the GIS functionality, these tasks will be done for them as part of the subdivision import and work order design process.

Implementation Summery
In retrospect, project success is the result of several key factors:
  • Active support by the Division’s CEO and key management. A key factor enabling the current success at JUD is the active support of the Division’s CEO, an engineer by training who understands the technology’s potential benefits. His ongoing support of and vision for the technology have helped to focus attention on the initiative.
  • Use of industry consultants and external data conversion companies. The role of the consultant at JUD took on significance for at least three key reasons:

    • The AM/FM/GIS project would have been a first-of-a-kind large-scale implementation for the utility
    • The corporate-wide nature of the system benefited from the involvement of an independent third party
    • JUD hoped to implement the project in a business environment that included significant resource constraints and increasing work load demands

  • Phased, thorough, user-driven approach. The phased approach, beginning with the

    • Feasibility Study in 1993 provided several advantages:
    • Gathered requirements directly from the users. This process did not dictate a system to users; rather it provided them the opportunity to design a system that met their needs. This generated user buy-in from the beginning.
    • The feasibility study and pilot project provided several opportunities for management go/no-go decisions.
    • Incremental funding decisions
    • The Pilot provided hands-on use with JUD specific data and functionality
    • Full implementation focusing initially the basics - data and data maintenance expanding to custom functionality
Summary of Functionality
JUD expects to complete full implementation by the end of June 1997. This includes all data conversion, orthophotography creation for all of Madison County, and the development of the following core GIS functionality:
  • On-line access via GIS to customer, meter, and work management information on the AS1400
  • PC access to GIS and the AS/400
  • Corporate-wide networking infrastructure
  • Land and facility data maintenance applications
  • Data query and access applications
  • System navigation applications
  • Work design, work sketch, and work estimating applications
  • Batch plotting and address cross reference application
  • Miscellaneous other minor applications
Summary of Benefits
Few activities take place within JUD without requiring some knowledge of the transmission and distribution facilities. Therefore, the rapid access and dissemination of this information throughout JUD is of strategic importance to improve customer response and to provide safe, reliable, and effective utility service. GIS is providing the means to economically achieve the corporate-wide accessibility to facility- and customer-related information required to efficiently design, build, maintain, and operate JUD’S utility networks. JUD expects numerous tangible and intangible benefits from GIS implementation of which the primary benefits are as follows:
  • Significant quantitative labor productivity enhancements, improved asset utilization, decision support, and cost displacement benefits.
  • Significantly improve the integration of corporate data and systems.
  • Facilitate changes in current business processes. GIS is a strategic component of the reengineering of JUD’S business process and of the corporate computing environment.
  • Improved geographic and facilities data sharing with City and County organizations. City and County participation will provide many implementation economies of scale, labor productivity enhancement and product quality enhancement for all parties involved.
  • Improved security of maps and facility records by having the digital data backed up on a regular basis.
Small utility GIS implementations PROS and cONS
Implementing a GIS at a smaller utility has several advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages of Small Utility GIS Implementation:
  • There may be less politics than in a larger organization--fewer organizational entities exist such as districts, divisions, or operating companies, which all may want to do business differently.
  • Improved communications largely due to the fact that most of the system’s users may be in the same building or in close physical proximity.
  • Improved access to key management. In the case of JUD, its CEO has been an active champion since the project’s inception.
Disadvantages of Small Utility GIS implementation:
  • SmalIer utilities may not have undertaken a project of this magnitude before. For example, smaller utilities often do not spend the time to analyze the GIS data requirements and to define system requirements prior to system implementation. This results in reworking database designs during the implementation process.
  • Smaller utilities often lack systems integration, networking, UNIX, and other technical experience/expertise. The systems administration personnel have to be knowledgeable about many different technical disciplines including UNIX systems administration, networking, GIS software, Oracle software,
  • Smaller utilities tend to under-resource project implementation. In JUD’S case, only one employee was assigned to the project on a full-time basis and this person’s responsibility was primarily administering the UNIX systems. The result is that key decisions regarding the design and content of the GIS may be deferred to the point that the lack of a decision negatively affects the overall project. Equally important, the lack of human resources on a project may mean that it takes longer to get things done.
Future Plans
One key future functionality for JUD is to build and interface to JUD’S gas, water, electric engineering packages to eliminate the duplicate network data maintenance and to facilitate more thorough analyses of the networks. This interface, accomplished with Stoner, Windmil, and Cybernet engineering analysis software, wil I help JUD gauge the impact on the network caused by its ongoing expansion and reconfiguration.

A second interface is planned to link JUD’S existing SCADA system with the GIS to assist with outage management efforts. Where a larger utility might simply buy a third-party outage management software package, JUD is building a subset that will display outages as they are phoned in, offering a cost-effective, reduced-scale alternative.

clearly is achieving big system objectives with its GIS. In doing so, project managers were pragmatic in their decisions to limit some of the desired system functionality. At the same time, however, they simply exercised the same rigorous cost-benefit analysis that any prudent utility— regardless of size--is compelled to undertake in this era of competition and scarce resources.

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