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Integrating and coordinating a multi-utility GIS program
Jocelyn M. Quimbo
City of Tallahassee
300 S. Adams St., Tallahassee, FL 32301
Jocelyn M. Quimbo
City of Tallahassee
300 S. Adams St., Tallahassee, FL 32301
Abstract
Faced with the reality of deregulation in the utility industry, the City of Tallahassee’s six utility operations are now constantly challenged to provide the best services at the lowest cost to it’s more than 300,000 customers. This means doing more with less in both the utility and non-utility departments of government. Management was forced to address several long-standing issues regarding the City’s GIS program or the lack of it, and a coordinated city-wide GIS program is now underway. The paper describes the issues brought about by integrating a multi-utility GIS with the enterprise from an organizational, management, and system perspective. It discusses the frameworks of the City of Tallahassee’s City-wide GIS program and the City’s implementation strategies.
Background
Threat of Deregulation
The City of Tallahassee (City) is an incorporated municipality that owns its electricity, gas, water, sewer, storm water and solid waste utilities. It provides utility services to its residents and peripheral areas. Revenue generated by the utility services supplements 25’%of the City’s annual expenditure, enabling it to provide a relatively high standard of service in spite of a limited property-tax base and absence of income tax. Deregulation in the electric utility industry is seen as a threat to the City’s ability to continue to provide public facilities and services to its residents at a low cost.
Although the deregulation of the electric industry is not expected in Florida until the turn of the century, the City is already preparing for its advent. There is a prevailing thought that it would be very difficult for the City to successfully compete with private industry in the business of electric generation and distribution. However, with already huge investments in the business, coupled with the perception that the City’s financial state may be threatened, it will be difficult for the City to completely stay out of the electric generation and distribution business. The City has to find a niche. Several studies are being undertaken to identify the City’s best option in a deregulated environment. At the same time, other potential sources of revenue are also being considered. The City management is looking for ways to optimize the use of resources in existing operations. Geographic Information System (GIS) plays a key role in all these activities as a tool for feasibility studies and map displays, an integrator of information, and a facility to improve departmental operations.
Problems with Non-integrated GIS
GIS in the City began as individual automation projects initiated at the department level in the late 1980’s through the early 1990’s. It is only recently, however, that tangible benefits are being derived from some of these systems. One reason for the slow return on investments on these GIS systems is that good base map data did not become available until mid 1993. Perhaps a more important reason is the lack of concerted planning and implementation across City departments. Every department that can afford GIS had its own GIS system, GIS coordinator and staff, GIS budget, and GIS projects and priorities. This non-integrated GIS is characterized by the following weaknesses:
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To correct these problems, the City recently placed all departmental GIS systems under the management of its information systems department. With this move, the City expects to reduce its annual GIS maintenance cost, get better returns through improvements in departmental operations, and optimize the use of staff and computing resources.
The remaining parts of this paper address the issues brought about by integrating a multi-utility GIS by presenting the general framework and strategies being implemented in the City’s new GIS Program.
Integration issues
The decision to integrate a multi-utility GIS is done in the political arena. The decision-makers have to be convinced that integration is viable and cost-effective. The largest cost involved in integrating a multi-utility GIS is commonly the cost of converting applications and data into a single GIS. However, this cost is usually readily offset by the reduced cost of maintaining one system instead of multiple systems. The next major hurdle is convincing existing staff to change and learn a new system. There is normally the option to replace existing staff but they are usually retained because of their knowledge of the data and undocumented exceptions of the existing system.
This paper will address the technical aspects of integration.
The following are major factors and options that have to be considered when integrating a multi-utility GIS:
Organization and Staffing
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System and Data Integration
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Program and Proiect Management
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The frameworks and strategies below are examples for planning and designing a multi-utility integrated GIS. They attempt to answer most of the issues raised above from the perspective of implementing an integrated GIS in the City. The examples have been generalized to apply to a broader audience.
Organisational framework
It is important to locate an integrated GIS program within a department that has broad impact, regular funding, and the ability to provide logistic support and staff expertise for information management. The Information Systems Services Department (1SS) of the City have all these requisites. 1SS created a GIS unit which is directly responsible for managing GIS projects. The new GIS unit will work with other existing 1SS units including the Interlocal GIS unit which is responsible for the maintenance of the base maps, in supporting GIS applications and data development in the City.
Each City department will continue to play a major role, primarily in the creation, maintenance, and retrieval of GIS data. There will be a designated GIS Specialist who will facilitate GIS-related work in each department. The GIS Specialists will keep office in their designated department’s site but will be supervised by the GIS Program Manager. This special arrangement is a crucial element of the GIS integration. This approach will assure the departments of readily available support staff to assist with their GIS work, while at the same time assure upper management that GIS work is being done according to standards and priorities approved by the City.
Figure 1 shows the relative position of the new GIS unit in the City organizational chart. Also shown in the lower part of the diagram are departmental workgroups --- functional teams whose main purpose is to meet on a regular basis to keep everyone concerned abreast with the progress of ongoing projects, discuss needs, and set directions. Each team is composed of at least the department’s GIS Specialist, management representative(s), and key staff involved in major GIS projects, and the GIS Program Manager.
Figure 1.
Table 1 is a matrix that shows an array of GIS services and the corresponding level of involvement expected from various organizational entities. This matrix should be complemented by an annual service level agreement between 1SS and each department. The annual agreement shall be approved by a review board to make sure that it is consistent with existing City policies and strategic goals. A steering committee comprising of management representatives from each department will review projects and set strategic plans.
Table 1. Service Matrix (N = not required; O = optionally required; R = required)
| Service | City GIS | Other ISS | TLC GIS | Dept. |
| Maintenance of base maps | N | N | R | N |
| Maintenance of Interlocal GIS computing facility | N | N | R | N |
| Public access of base map data | o | N | R | o |
| Planning, mgmt., coordination, and budget of Interlocal GIS work | N | N | R | N |
| GM training and technology update | R | N | o | 0 |
| Planning, coordination, management, and budget of City GIS work | R | o | N | o |
| Maintenance of City GIS data sets and applications | R | o | 0 | N |
| Maintenance of City GIS computing facilities | o | R | o | N |
| Integration of GIS with other soflware applications | R | R | R | o |
| Development of City GIS applications | R | o | 0 | 0 |
| Development and enforcement of City GIS standards | R | o | 0 | 0 |
| Procurement/evaluation/installation of City GIS products/services | R | R | o | 0 |
| Collection, entry, conversion, and maintenance of Dept.-specific data | o | N | o | R |
| Data retrieval, analysis and studies Map generation and display | o | N | o | R |
| Announcement of GIS events | R | o | R | o |
Figure 2 shows the generalized the staffing requirements for the new GIS unit. The number of GIS Specialists will depend more on the number of departments to be supported and the corresponding workload. At the barest level of staffing there could be only one GIS Specialist who will perform all the roles for every department. To be more effective, there will be more likely one GIS Specialist for each major department. While each GIS Specialist have required skills, each one is an expert in only three or more skills that are best suited to the department’s needs. The new GIS unit will not be alone in supporting the entire City’s GIS program. Other 1SS units will also be involved as shown in Table 1.
Figure 2
Hardware framework
The City has relatively advance computing and networking infrastructure already in place. Figure 3 illustrates the its hardware framework. Below are some of the enhancements being planned for the current network and computer systems that serve GIS and GIS-related applications. The setup will have the following features when completed:
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Figure - 3
Software and data framework
There are several levels by which information systems can be integrated: hardware/systems level, software level, or data level. At the software and data levels, integration can be further refined to the following: application, programming interface or tool set, data format, and data model. Standards are adopted regardless of the level of integration in order to facilitate sharing and compatibility of information and processes.
Figure 4 shows some of the standards that have been adopted (or being considered for adoption) by the City. The two outermost layers of the diagram represent the software levels while the two inner most layers represent the data levels. The outermost layer shows the standard applications. The standard tool sets is next, followed by the standard data formats. The core is the standard data model.
The standard data model should represent all aspects of the enterprise. For a multi-utility company, like the City, the enterprise data model includes components that describe the land base, public works and utilities facilities network, and business aspects of the system. These models serve as the template for information integration because they identify objects of interest to the enterprise as well as the relationships and dependencies of these objects to each other. The City uses GIS to facilitate integration of its different application systems because in most cases the only property common to these objects is their location. A GIS provides the capability to relate and manipulate objects using their geographic location.
Figure - 4
Implementation Strategies
Integrating a multi-utility GIS requires management sponsorship. Our approach builds from the organizational and system frameworks described above. We draw from our knowledge of the basic principles of information management and our accumulated experience to implement them. After all, GIS maybe considered as just another information system, albeit more complex. My experience in working with what is now referred to as legacy systems coupled with lessons learned from earlier GIS implementations lead me to believe that there is greater chance for success by pursuing the following strategies:
- Link goals and objectives of the GIS program with the City’s business objectives.
GIS should be promoted as a tool to help an organization meet its objectives. It is not an end but a means. For a city facing the dilemmas of electric deregulation, GIS will facilitate information integration and provide better information for planning and service delivery which will help reduce operating costs and generate revenues for the City.
- Develop common goals and priorities for GIS projects.
In a multi-utility enterprise such as the City, GIS projects can be very costly, The creation and maintenance of base maps alone can cost several millions. This cost increases as the mapping needs of each utility and municipal departments are considered. The City is fortunate to have a successful partnership with the Leon County and the Property Appraiser’s Office in sharing the cost of development and maintenance of its base maps. To address the utility and municipal departments’ needs, the City has a GIS Strategic Planning Team which identifies and prioritizes GIS projects citywide. Funding for projects are made available according to their priority.
- Use phase-by-phase implementation approach with each phase contributing to the overall improvement of the business.
As with many early GIS implementations, the City spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on GIS with little results. Some multi-year projects were expected to yield useful results only towards the end of the project life. In one case, this meant no useful output in seven years. Phase implementation may require breaking up the scope of a project into smaller areas, e.g. by substation, or satisfying functional requirements in parts, e.g., maps with lower accuracy for planning purposes versus highly accurate maps for design use. It is important to be able to show progress in terms of improvements in the business process between budget cycles, if not within the political life of major sponsors of the project.
- Take advantage of open solutions that are already available.
The City, for the most part, has long adopted the policy of limiting in-house development of applications. With hundreds of local governments in the country, products and services that it needs are likely to be already available in the open market. Purchasing off-the-shelf products delivers more immediate results and may be less expensive in the long run. A drawback with this strategy is that it resulted to the existence of incompatible systems which became costly and cumbersome to maintain and use. The policy should have been complemented with standards that enable system integration. The City in recent years have adopted open system standards for hardware, software, and database management. It is now starting to adopt industry standard data models for its various business components.
- Increase awareness on the applications of existing technologies and equipping people to do their
work.
The general approach in the past was to have a single person in each operating department who is knowledgeable of GIS and responsible for all GIS-related work. Now, the goal is to ensure that GIS tools are available to everyone who needs it as part of regular work. To realize this goal, workshops are being conducted to increase the awareness of management and staff on the use of GIS; standard and customized GIS training classes are regularly being held; computing equipment are regularly being evaluated and upgraded if necessary; several types of GIS tools are being made available for various levels of users; and vendor-provided and in-house technical support are made available.
- Antenucci, J.C., P.Crosswell, and M.Kevany, 1991, Geographic Information Systems A Guide to the Technology, 301.
- PTI, Urban Consortium, and ICMA, 1991, The Local Government Guide to Geographic Information
Systems: Planning and Implementation, 127.