Northern Kentucky Sanitation District No. 1 Integrates Maintenance Management and GIS
By Joel Knight, P.E.
GBA Master Series, Inc.
8900 Ward Parkway, Kansas City, MO 64114
Absract
In 1995, the Sanitation District No. 1 of Northern Kentucky was charged with maintenance of a
collection system encompassing more than 1,100 mile of interceptor sewer and main trunk line.
Previously, the district, which is located in the Cincinnati, Ohio metropolitan area maintained
only about 100 miles of sewer line.
Their search for a replacement of the existing system involved implementing a system that would
complement ESRI’s ARC/INFO. They sought a package to track customer calls, work orders,
inspections and asset information, which would also tie to GIS.
The district underwent a series of data conversion projects to complement the transition to their
new system. Data came from several legacy sources and had many format discrepancies. To
jumpstart the implementation of the new software system, they entered approximately 30,000
work orders or five years’ history.
Utilizing the functionality of the new system and comprehensive digital data and maps enabled
district personnel to perform historical system analyses and develop comprehensive work
routines based on GIS and asset inventory.
In 1995, the Sanitation District No. 1 of Northern Kentucky was charged with maintenance of a
collection system encompassing more than 1,100 miles of interceptor sewer and main trunk line.
Previous to that time, the district, which is located in the Cincinnati, Ohio, Metropolitan area,
owned and maintained only about 100 miles of sewer line. Their primary role in the area was one
of leadership as individual cities within the district owned and operated their own systems. The
smaller cities would turn to the district for resolution of larger, more difficult problems. The
added responsibility meant the district had to find a better way to manage their maintenance
processes.
Searching for a replacement of the existing system included the goal of integrating maintenance
management with a Geographic Information System (GIS). The district was already using
ESRI’s ArcView and ARC/INFO. They wanted a package to track customer calls, work orders,
inspections and asset information, which would tie to GIS. The Sanitation District serves
approximately 300,000 customers in a three-county area. On average, they expect 35 to 50
customer calls per week, and anticipate 200 calls during above-normal wet weather events.
Until 1995, work orders generated from customer requests as well as routine preventative
maintenance were hand written and filed away. The District used a variety of paper processes,
spreadsheet applications, and word processing documents to store system information. Their
already developed GIS was used to map and analyze the system, but it was not linked to a
maintenance management software system.
"What we needed was a comprehensive computerized maintenance management system that
would tie all of this information together so it could be used by all of their departments,"
explained Tom Braun, Information Systems Manager for the District. Their final software
selection was based on the software’s interface and integration capacity, which would fit their
current needs, but would also provide additional functionality to accommodate future
development of the system. They based their selection criteria on several features of the
software; an advanced customer complaint tracking system, a work order and resource utilization
program, as well as a sanitary sewer and storm sewer inventory and inspection system. A
additional complementary GIS application provides necessary GIS functionality for the
collection system and maintenance personnel. The program includes out-of-the-box tracing tools
for the sanitary sewer and storm sewer systems, which can be employed to locate a blockage
causing multiple backups or assist in locating sources of illegal dumping in the storm sewer
system. A tracing tool also provides a fast, intuitive way to delineate flow basins for flow
monitoring programs.
