Work management/GIS integration: Improves estimates, saves time

There are many applications to be built around the GIS. Of all the applications to consider building, the application that will generate the greatest benefit, the biggest bang for the buck, is a Job Design System (JDS). If your company has a GIS or is considering building a GIS your plans should include a Job Design System.

Job design is part of work management. The definition of work management takes on a variety of meanings depending on the organization. The fundamental definition for work management is that it supports the process cycle for the construction and maintenance of facilities. The cycle begins with a request for work from a customer or an internal department. The work is planned, estimated, and scheduled. While the work is being performed, materials are distributed and labor is tracked. After completion of the work, property accounting and engineering, records are updated to reflect the actual fieldwork.

The work management process is tightly coupled to the maintenance of the GIS. GIS can provide significant benefits at many points in the work management process. When a job is initiated, it can offer access to an integrated set of facility records. During design, existing configurations of facilities can be altered and proposed facilities can be added. The design of proposed facilities can generate a bill of materials and a labor estimate. When updating facility records, the effort and time used for posting “as-built” information to the GIS can be reduced. In this paper we will focus on the benefits of developing a job design system in the GIS and the additional benefits obtained by integrating the job design system with an estimating system.

Job design system
The primary fi.mction of a Job Design System (JDS) is to provide designers with the tools to create a construction sketch, which can be issued to a construction crew. When a designer is assigned the task of providing service to the new customer, he or she will create the design in the GIS using the JDS. When the design is complete, the designer will estimate the cost of the job and. will print a copy of the construction sketch for approval by the customer. If modifications are required, the designer can make the modifications in the GIS, create a new copy of the construction sketch and develop a new estimate. When the design has been approved, a construction sketch can be issued to construction.

During the construction phase, the crew will indicate any field changes on the construction sketch. When construction is complete, the crew will return the “as-built” construction sketch to the designer. The designer will then modify the design in the GIS to reflect the “as-built” changes, change the status of proposed facilities to their existing state and update the GIS database. At this point, all users of the GIS have access to the new facility records. During the update process, all units of property, which have been installed or retired can be identified and passed to property accounting.

Benefits of a job design system
The development of a JDS can produce sizable corporate savings. Typically, a designer will draw up a design on a construction sketch. After the completion of construction, a mapping organization will update the permanent maps from information supplied on the “as-built” drawing. The process of copying information from “as-built” drawings to the permanent maps is susceptible to errors and companies with high growth rates typically have large mapping backlogs. With a fully integrated JDS, the actual design becomes the permanent record. The obvious benefits from this approach are:

The mapping function will be greatly reduced if not eliminated.
The accuracy of corporate records will be improved.
The mapping backlog will be eliminated.
Corporate records will be up to date and reflect the current “as-built” field conditions.
Units of property which were installed or retired on the job can be identified and passed to property accounting

The labor savings achieved in eliminating the mapping function will, in many cases, be offset by additional work that may be required during the design phase.

Drawbacks of a JDS
The development of a JDS in the GIS will have an impact on the current job design process.

When designing a job in the GIS, the designer must log into the system and go to or retrieve the geographic area for the proposed work. The amount of time required to perform this task will vary from platform to platform. In some cases the time is small but can be a significant portion of the total time required to complete a small job. For each proposed facility that the designer places, he or she must capture a variety of attributes. Many of the attributes being captured are not required for the job design but are required to support other applications. Additional steps may also be required to create the network connectivity model. When the construction for the job is complete the designer must log into the system, modify the proposed design to reflect the “as-built” field conditions, and update the GIS database. The total time required to complete the design from inception to the final update in the GIS may, in some cases, be more than what would be required if the job were drawn by hand or if a stand alone drawing package were used to create the design.

The additional time required in the job design phase may offset some of the savings realized from a reduction in mapping staff. The additional time required to complete a job design can also lead to problems during implementation. The designer must learn to use a new tool. It will take the designer time to become proficient with the tool. Once the designer becomes proficient in using the JDS it may still take him or her longer to create a job design. This could have a negative impact on user acceptance. Some of the complaints heard from end users in locations where we have implemented a JDS are: “we have to enter more information than what is required to produce a job design sketch”, “I can draw a sketch faster by hand”, and “the system is too hard to use”. Even though we have achieved some corporate savings by implementing a JDS, we have increased the workload of designers and user acceptance has been less than desirable.

To offset the investment of designer time specifying attributes and building the network connectivity, real time savings for designers can be achieved by integrating the JDS with an estimating system. This integration will also have a positive effect on user acceptance. By integrating an estimating system with the design process, a very important and real benefit for the designers can be achieved.