Implementing AM/FM/GIS at an RUS Electric Cooperative
Unfortunately, one cannot have everything. Even though the “best fit” system was selected, there were still functionality gaps. A list of these missing functions was collected and prioritized as critical, preferred, and future. It is important to work with the application vendor or other developer to address the critical list as soon as possible. One must remain open minded that if a perceived critical function will compromise the integrity of the vendor’s system, one must reevaluate its status and possibly find an alternative solution. If the function is essential, recognize that harm may be done to the core system down the road.
Refine Field Inventory Requirements
AEC believed that a field collection effort could not begin without a final selection of an application vendor, and therefore, finalized data structures. Within field inventory, data collection progressed at the site in the form of RUS construction standards. This requirement focused AEC’S vendor search on those companies with staff familiar with such standards. In addition, AEC required the collection of a GPS coordinate for each structure, and that an accurate circuit model be delivered in the application sotlware’s format.
Paths for underground wire were determined from existing paper maps. In order to facilitate this process, a scan of existing maps was performed and a cross-reference grid was built between the new and old map-block layouts. Matching existing maps to the new state plane map grid proved to be a challenge because no coordinate system was used in creating the initial system in 1959. It was expected to use these scanned images to provide a interim electronic field data solution during the two year inventory project.
The AEC service territory covers approximately two thousand square miles within nine counties in mid/western South Carolina. Existing land base data from the various political entities was aged at best and non-existent at worst. AEC elected to have its area flown and a four hundred foot scale map was generated in ortho photo and vector format. An additional task of the field inventory provider was to incorporate AEC vector data within the target system. This process was made simpler because of the shared coordinate systems.
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