The integration of Work Management to GIS

The integration of Work Management to GIS

Ronald E Bereit
Vice President
R & S Associates
7700 East Princess Drive, Suite #7
Scottsdale, Arizona 85255
Phone: (480) 563-9578, Fax: (480) 515-0571
Email: ronbereit@hotmail.com

Abstract
Many utilities are recognizing the relationship between systems that support work activities related to facilities and the systems that support the management of those facilities. Work Management System (WMS) and the Facilities Management portion of Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) are closely related, and efficiencies can be gained by the integration of the two applications. Numerous factors influence the makeup of this integration, including the volume and type of work that is designed and performed, and the level of detail needed to specify a facility design. The linking of Construction Standards and Compatible Units play a key role in facilitating the integration of Work Management with GIS. Compatible Units function in WMS should support design, the timeliness and accuracy required for cost and time estimates, scheduling, construction, accounting, and performance measurement functions.

A Work Management System is the cornerstone for managing “best practice” processes managing the facility’s tabular design requirements, and the benchmarking of efficient productivity-enhancement tools. A Geospatial Information System is the other cornerstone, managing the facility’s spatial design associated with circuitry and location. WMS can be tightly or loosely integrated with GIS depending upon the business strategies and technical architectures that are most appropriate.

Introduction
The current focus that many utilities are placing on business process reengineering and other efforts to improve efficiencies and customer service has revealed that assets and activities are closely related. Work activities often pertain to facility assets, and the business processes that have the greatest impact on customer service are those that deal with work on the facilities that provide service. As a result, a great deal of interest concerning the integration of Work Management and Geospatial Information Systems.

GIS typically manages information regarding installed distribution facilities and support planning, design, and maintenance functions. WMS typically manages information related to work activities, including customer service functions, construction, maintenance, and operations. In general, the relationship between these two systems can be summarized as follows. WMS is responsible for the tabular functions associated with initiation, specification, scheduling, execution, and accounting of activities to install, remove, or modify facilities. GIS is responsible for the spatial functions associated with initiation, specification, maintaining and improving the performance of all installed facilities.

A Work Request, through the use of Job Types, specifies the assemblies and components to be installed when facilities are placed in service. When the Work Request is completed information regarding the facility must be added to a GIS database. For modifying or removing existing facilities, a Work Request must specify the facilities that are to be affected, and the facilities database must be updated to reflect the changes as the result of the Work Request. For these situations WMS serves as a transaction feeder system to a GIS database.

For maintenance, the facilities and /or maintenance database is used to determine the maintenance requirements and timing for recurring activities, such as tree trimming, pole treatments or routine inspection and maintenance tasks. In these situations the GIS database may be one of the sources used to trigger repetitive Work Requests. Utilities have found that if they implement an GIS system without having a Work Management system they will have to re-enter information contained on a Work Request into the GIS system to post the results of work that has been completed. This redundant data entry can cause increased backlogs for mapping system updates, and decreased data integrity. If they implement a Work Management system without having an associated facilities database they are losing valuable information that is collected during the Work Request process. This information includes attributes about the facilities that are installed or removed on the Work Request, as well as configuration and location data. Using WMS as a feeder to a GIS database provides utilities with a mechanism for collecting, verifying and maintaining facilities information.

By properly integrating these two systems Utilities will be able to ensure the accuracy and integrity of both Work Request and facilities information. Changes to a Utility's installed facilities should only occur as the result of an approved Work Request, so by making sure that the process for closing a Work Request includes posting updates to the GIS system, a Utility can be assured that their facilities database will stay accurate. By integrating the Work Management and GIS systems this process can become automatic, and the data will be both accurate and current.

A GIS system is only one of many systems that are closely related to Work Management. such as the use of databases, hardware platforms and operating systems. Closely integrating GIS and Work Management to the ruling out of all other systems will not provide a successful resolution.

Work Request Process
The diagram shown below depicts the process and functions involved in a typical life cycle for work, constructing and maintaining facilities to serve customers. The overall process for new facilities work, such as a residential subdivision, typically involves multiple Work Requests with different characteristics. A Project is initiated when plans are received from a customer or developer, such as for a new subdivision. An engineer then designs and specifies the facilities through a review process or “Non Construction” Work Request. Then when the engineer finalizes the design and specifies the facilities to be installed by showing locations, sizes and configurations, a “Design” Work Request would be created. A “Pre Design” Work Request would be used to capture each of the individual Services. This work is then scheduled and dispatched to field crews who install the facilities and have them energized. After this work has been completed it must be appropriately accounted for and reflected in updates to company databases, including maps and property records.

Another use of the “Pre Design” Work Request, occur as customers call to be connected for service or as minor changes are made to the installed facilities, such as moving a pole or changing out a transformer to meet new customer requirements. A customer service representative who receives the call requesting service often initiates these Work Requests. The Work Requests typically do not require engineering designs and can usually be completely specified using notes or simple sketches, thus the use of the “Pre Design” concept. The work is scheduled and dispatched based heavily upon customer needs, and can often be performed in a short time period. After the work is completed it must also be appropriately accounted for and charged, but it may not involve a change to maps or property records unless a significant unit of property was involved.

One more example of the “Pre Design” Work Request might include facilities that need maintenance, which could be either on a repetitive basis for routine activities or on demand during an emergency. This work will also not need an engineering design unless major upgrades or replacements are made.

functional integration
Work Management and GIS systems overlap functionally at most of the points in the process shown in the diagram on the previous page. By coordinating the process at these points a considerable amount of redundancy can be eliminated. For example, during the Initiation and Design steps most of the information needed for accounting and posting to the facilities and property databases can be collected through the use of Job Types and Compatible Units, such as the reason for the Work Request, the specifications for the facilities to be installed, locations that are involved. If additional information, such as unique facility identifiers or serial numbers and changes to the design can be collected during the construction phase of the process..

Initiation
Major facilities work, such as new subdivisions, overhead to underground conversions, and system upgrades, are typically initiated internally within the engineering or planning department. New customer related work could also be initiated internally if the customer or developer is working directly with an engineer or planner. Minor facilities work that is the direct result of a customer request, such as connecting or disconnecting service, upgrading service, or relocating facilities due to customer building, is typically initiated within the customer service department that receives the telephone call or letter requesting the work. Repetitive or routine maintenance work is initiated internally based upon either the result of an inspection or other factors indicating the need to perform certain maintenance activities. These Work Requests are often initiated automatically based upon parameters in the facilities and / or maintenance management system.

Relevant information regarding a Work Request should be collected when the request is initiated, the need to reenter that data during a later step will be reduced. Since work can be initiated in multiple departments within the Utility, the capability to create a Work Request must be provided to a large number of users.

Design
Facilities Work Requests can be broadly categorized into three groups:

Non-Construction – those requests that involve major facilities planning work and require coordination with developers, contractors, and all the other utilities. The preliminary design would be done in GIS, and WMS would track the effort and business flow for approvals.
Design – these Works Requests that involve major facilities work and require detailed drawings and specifications regarding the placement, size and configuration of the facilities to be installed. Detailed drawings are needed to show where facilities cross major streets and the location of switches, fuses and transformers. In most cases, this type Work Request would require some level of approval.
Pre Design – these Work Requests do not require detailed design drawings or specifications since the crews know how to perform the work and only need a few instructions. In these cases a design is not needed and would be inefficient since crews can perform their job best by basing it on local conditions and on-site discussions with customers. In most cases, this type Work Request would not require any approval.

Many Utilities are moving to authorize crews with greater authority and responsibility for Pre Designed work. Work crews often do not need or use detailed drawings or specifications for routine work. Templates can also assist in eliminating the design step for many Work Requests by using rules to automate the function and enable customer service representatives to perform designs that were typically done in the engineering department. For many Work Requests a few simple questions are all that is necessary to specify the work that is needed.

Pre Designed Work Requests need only specify the components to be installed with a rough sketch of the location. The use of pen-based software with a graphic sketching tool is best in these situations, especially if the designs will be performed on-site in the field.

Estimate & Scheduling
Another use of Compatible Units is to enable estimates to be quickly generated for the cost and effort associated with a Work Request. This feature is very valuable if several design options are available and the designer wishes to compare these options from cost, and network performance perspectives. As Utilities move to become more cost conscious and customer service focused, designers may develop several options for a customer and then negotiate any differences in cost, such as overhead versus underground.

In order to generate cost and resource estimates for multiple Work Request designs, there must be a mechanism for associating labor, material, and equipment costs to the compatible units specified on the Work Request. If a Utility wishes to generate accurate estimates based upon current labor, material and equipment costs, then a method must be in place to extract these costs from the appropriate corporate systems, such as the payroll, materials and vehicle management systems. To extract actual material costs it is necessary to determine the stock codes that are associated with the Compatible Units used in the Work Request. This relationship is also necessary to automatically generate a materials requisition and pick list from the bill of materials on the Work Request.

Compatible units can also assist in determining the resources that will be required for a Work Request by including the skills and estimated effort associated with each unit. This information is valuable during the planning and scheduling of resources, to maximize the utilization of resources.

Work / Progress & Complete & Close
The Work Request Complete and Close functions processes the results of a partial as well as completed Work Request and updates the corresponding company records, systems and databases. Unfortunately, this step interacts with a large number of departments and systems, and the automation of these three processes involves a significant systems integration effort. During the Work / Progress & Complete & Close processes, Work Request updates may be made to the materials management system to reconcile issues and returns, to the equipment and vehicle tracking systems to verify usage, to the payroll and human resources system to validate time charges, to the general ledger and financial systems to post Work Request costs, to the Continuing Property records system to post units placed in service or retired, and to the GIS and mapping systems to post as-built configurations. Other interfaces can also be developed, such as notification to the customer system that the work has been completed and the meter has been set.

To fully automate the Work / Progress & Complete & Close function, most of the information can be collected during the Work Request process so that it is available for automatic posting when the work is completed. The information specified during the design step begins this process. The initial information can be further refined with more details as the Work Request progresses. A really good example might be equipment identifiers and serial numbers, which can be associated when the items are requisitioned from the warehouse. Items retrieved from the field for return to inventory or assemblies that are re-used can be recorded to adjust the cost of the Work Request. When complete, the net facility changes can be posted to the Continuing Property Records system, Asset Management and facilities database. The update of financial systems can be automatic based upon the data accumulated with the Work Request via the materials management, payroll, and equipment management systems.

Compatible Units
The Compatible Units (CU) function is a cornerstone in a WMS and the integration to GIS and other systems. Compatible Units can also be used to automate the design step by basing standards upon the best construction practices and providing information for estimating, performance management and asset accounting. A hierarchical compatible units data structure enables high-level designs and estimates to be quickly generated during the design function, and then further defined into components and materials that make up the specifications of a Work Request. A comprehensive compatible structure also includes labor and equipment resource factors to assist in generating schedules for crews, vehicles and equipment based upon the specifications of the Work Request.

CU’s enable necessary information to be collected "behind the scenes" as a consequence of the design step. The designer specifies macro unit components (two or more CU’s) to quickly complete a facility design with minimal data entry. These units support the generation of cost estimates and enable multiple design alternatives to be quickly created and compared by replicating designs and modifying specific characteristics. The ability to create templates and store common designs that can be stored and replicated for future will also increase productivity. These templates might include standard jobs such as a typical new service installation or pole extension. These templates can enable very fast high-level estimates for common work requests, giving representatives the ability to provide preliminary estimate figures to customers while talking with them on the phone. Data relationships provide the tool for using Compatible Units to integrate Work Management with GIS and other applications. These relationships include the ability to pass design information into an "as-built" database and associate labor, material, and equipment expenditures with the appropriate Work Request. More sophisticated relationships enable actual performance results to be passed back to the design phase to improve estimates and detect errors, and relate operating results to design and construction factors to improve efficiencies. Key data relationships provide the ability to associate material, labor and equipment costs to Work Requests, Work Request details to the facilities and customers involved, inspection and maintenance work histories to the facilities and their related performance, and operating conditions to affected facilities.

A properly designed CU database can serve as an agent for the integration of systems as well as support the implementation of construction standards, provide estimating and scheduling capabilities, assist in performance measurement, and facilitate property accounting.

Construction Standards
Engineering in determining the best configuration of components and assemblies when developing the design for facilities on a Work Request as supported by the utility’s Construction Standards should support the Compatible Units function. The "compatibility" feature determines which components go together, and prevents design errors such as the wrong size pole or improper cross arms for the selected design. To accomplish these functions the compatible units must be consistent with engineering design and construction standards as documented in company manuals.

By automating engineering and construction standards as an aspect of the compatible unit system, engineers are able to quickly select and specify facilities to be installed on a Work Request by picking compatible unit numbers from a menu, and field crews are able to clearly understand how the facilities are to be built by referring to the detailed construction diagrams that correspond to the compatible units specified. The standards manuals themselves do not need to be automated unless it is economically beneficial to have them in an electronic format such as an imaging or CAD system. Establishing Macro Units made up of two or more CU’s reduce the amount of specifying that must be done on the Work Request can facilitate the design process. Designers can then select a macro unit, such as a 40’ Class I Wood Pole with dual cross arm construction, rather than having to select each individual component. Macro units are then broken down, or “exploded” into their individual CU’s, which then generates the bill of material. Many Utilities are pursuing this application of compatible units even further by supplementing the system with more advanced rules, and even artificial intelligence-based logic to prompt the engineer with a "recommended" design based upon job-specific considerations. Some Utilities even see this approach as a way to dramatically reduce the need for higher paid engineers by having the system perform a large number of designs automatically based upon variables entered by an analyst or customer service representative. Standard job templates (i.e., sets of macro units) are used for most work. These templates can be customized for individual situations by answering a small set of prompted questions.

Performance Measurement
Many Utilities are beginning to use Compatible Units as a way to evaluate performance for both contractors and internal personnel. A history of Work Requests designed using CU’s provides the data necessary to calculate averages for specific items of plant. These averages can be used to compare in-house and contractor performance with regards to time and cost for certain types of work activities. These comparisons can improve the utilization of resources by supporting the allocation of work to the crews that are best at performing the specific tasks. Different contractors can be compared against each other for similar Work Requests.

Some Utilities now develop their contracts with outside service providers based upon bids by compatible unit. Contractors bid a fixed price per unit based upon a guaranteed annual quantity. In some cases this bid also includes materials, relieving the utility from the overhead associated with storerooms and warehouses. The bid price becomes an accurate way for utilities to estimate the cost of new Work Requests and compare design alternatives.

Compatible units can be used as a mechanism for reporting field status based upon the facilities that have been installed. If the crews report daily the units they have completed, this information can provide a rough measure of status and identify possible schedule variances. Based upon the total number of units or their associated time estimates, a percentage of completion can be automatically generated for work in process by comparing the job total to the amount completed.

Property Accounting
The final role that a Compatible Unit function should support is the automation of the Continuing Property Records unitization process. By relating CU’s to Property Units, the maintenance of the property accounting system is greatly simplified. When a Work Request is completed, the CU’s installed and removed determine the units of vintage year and / or mass property to be placed in service or retired. The level of unitization in the property accounting system should help in driving the development of the Compatible Unit.

Application Integration
The diagram below illustrates the applications and databases that are typically involved in supporting the life cycle for facility construction and maintenance activities. The functional design for each step in this process will determine the nature of the interfaces that are required between applications. For example, if the estimate for the Work Request is to be as accurate as possible, then an interface with the materials management system will be required to get the most current costs for material items. If accurate labor costs are needed, the payroll system must be accessed to determine current wage rates for the skill classes needed on the Work Request.

The Work Design Application is a critical link in the integration of Customer, Work and GIS. This application is responsible for developing the facility designs and specifications for construction Work Requests. The application needs access to existing facility information, customer, compatible units data and graphic design tools. Many Utilities are striving to implement a "Design Tools" that provides access to all context information necessary to complete a Work Request using a single interface. These workbenches include the ability to electronically view developer site plans, letters, permits, easements, and even pictures and videos. The objective is to minimize the time that a designer must spend collecting information and maximize the time spent on design and analysis activities.

Summary
A Utility cannot look at the integration of Work Management and GIS without considering the bigger picture that includes the entire process of designing, constructing, operating and maintaining facilities to serve customers. Work Management and GIS are only two of the systems needed to support a improved delivery process, and unless the other system components are also addressed the process may not be significantly improved and the benefits of integration may not be obtained.