The Road from CAD to enterprise
Douglas L. Laslo PE Autodesk, Inc 111 McInnins Pkwy San Rafael, CA 94952 Lou Ball Equitable Resources 200 Allegheny Center Mall Pittsburgh, PA 15212-5352 Abstract Utility companies are facing many pressures. These pressures are driving the need for integrated information systems for utility operations activities. Enterprise GIS provides benefits beyond CAD based solutions. Many utilities are beginning to make the journey from CAD based mapping to enterprise GIS. This road, as it can be traveled today will be outlined. Introduction Numerous companies throughout the utility and communications industries have adopted CAD based tools for drafting and design activities, as well as for mapping of their infrastructure and network model. These CAD based tools have provided real benefits for the utilities in the form of productivity improvements in drafting of new installations of infrastructure, and in the general maintenance of the maps and records. As the utility industry evolves, utility companies are facing many new pressures. There is an overall need to further improve operation efficiencies and generally reduce operating costs. Also, the regulatory environment is enforcing improvements in the management of outages and interruptions of service as well as preventative safety measures. These pressures are driving the need for more integrated information systems for operations activities. The CAD based tools used for drafting and mapping can be extended to function and participate with the information systems requirements, but have some limitations. Many utilities are looking to migrate from their CAD based tools to a more enterprise solution approach for their mapping and network modeling requirements. Enterprise GIS can provide benefits beyond CAD based solutions. In enterprise GIS solutions, the information pertaining to the utilities infrastructure, including the map related or geographical components, is managed together in relational database tables. This makes integration with other utility operation systems much more of a reality, and also makes management and maintenance of the information, as well as sharing of the information much simpler. For instance, integration of the drafting and design process with the materials and accounting systems can streamline the process of designing and estimating new installations of infrastructure. In addition, sharing of the connected electric, gas, communications, or water/waste water network from relational database tables with both outage and analysis solutions is simplified. With the technology available today, it is possible for utilities to maintain the benefits of the CAD based user interface, while also capturing and managing the information in enterprise GIS solutions. This is significant since it means that the investments in existing user interface functionality as well as user training and general acceptance is not lost as the utility expands the capabilities. Many utilities are beginning to make the journey down the road from CAD based mapping to enterprise GIS. As these utilities make the journey lessons are learned and the pathway is improved. In this paper, the experiences and approaches, as well as the technology improvements and enhancements will be reviewed. CAD VS Enterprise What are the differences between CAD and enterprise? What is meant by enterprise? Why go there? This can be confusing since there are many different levels of CAD implementations and various levels of applications built around those implementations. CAD is not a bad thing! CAD based GIS solutions are at least in part what started the revolution of Automated Mapping and AM/FM (Automated Mapping and Facilities Management), the predecessors to GIS. The concept of digitizing the manually drawn maps and then connecting them with data files that were related to the graphic features, is a definite and significant improvement from manual maps and records. Depending on the extent that each organization has customized and developed applications pertaining to their CAD based solution, moving to enterprise is not always a major step. For those who have organized the data in the CAD files, built the relationships between graphic features and data tables, and developed custom applications that manage and leverage the organization, the benefits of an enterprise solution are less evident. Those solutions are to a certain extent, enterprise solutions. Enterprise implies bigger picture. It implies a solution that fits into the information systems infrastructure of the organization. Open systems, availability of data to the larger group, the ability to integrate with other corporate systems, robust multi-user scalability, and seamless database are all characteristics of an enterprise solution. Reasons to go There are many benefits to moving from a CAD based GIS to an Enterprise GIS Solution. Some of the benefits are tangible in the form of real cost savings, and some are intangible in the form of better corporate information and improved decision process. Also, a GIS solution with enterprise characteristics generally is easier to integrate into the organizations IT infrastructure. Utilities desiring enterprise GIS are typically looking for the increased benefits that can be gained by better integration of both applications and data. In addition, utilities and other organization with larger scale infrastructure mapping and management requirements, tend to have large numbers of CAD files to cover the extents of their geographic area. Enterprise solutions typically run from a single database that can house extremely large areas of the company’s territory. This concept is referred to as seamless. A user can interact with the GIS over any size geographic area, and the data and information is seamless, or without boundary, across the entire expanse. An enterprise solution eliminates the issue of management of data across multiple files and file boundaries. Management of these larger numbers of files becomes an issue from several perspectives. First, a key map or other reference capabilities must be kept so that users can navigate to, and interact with the correct file relative to the feature (pole, pipe, switch, or valve), or perhaps street intersection they are interested in working with. Custom applications can be developed that perform some of this navigation for the user, and some CAD based GIS solutions include tools to assist the users or tools to assist the developers to build such capabilities. However, these are generally custom one-off applications that ultimately require application maintenance. In enterprise solutions, navigation is simply an act of querying the database for the entity, street or address, or any other feature contained in the database tables. The system returns the feature centered in the screen including the relative surrounding geography without the user needing to understand where in the organization’s territory the feature is located. Also, when users are distributed throughout multiple work locations, distribution of the data they are interested in working with, or worse, entire copies of all data within the organization becomes a network traffic and system performance issue. Interaction with a single copy of a single data source regardless of work location, is much less cumbersome on the network bandwidth. Additionally, enterprise solutions typically have graphic caching and transaction management schemes to assist the distributed user location scenarios. From the data management perspective, updates across all features of a specific feature type, is greatly simplified in an enterprise solution where all features are in a single database. Updates across a particular feature type can be performed in minutes with simple SQL database updates. Performing an update to a specific feature type when the data is located in multiple files is very cumbersome. In this case a routine may be required that opens each file, performs the update, and resaves each file when complete. Worse, a manual process might be required. For the utility industry, the improvement in business operations with an enterprise solution are significant. First, utilities are concerned with the concept of connected networks. Management of connected networks across multiple files requires special treatment and often customized applications so that the network can be considered as a complete group of features regardless of what files the segments are included in. In the electric utility industry, connected networks are managed and operated in the GIS, and those networks may also be passed to outage solutions and load analysis solutions. This is true also for the gas industry. Flow analysis routines, pipeline safety routines and pipeline integrity management routines are better performed in a solution where boundaries do not have to be considered. Regulatory pressures in both of these industries have pushed the utilities to have better information so that the safety and outage routines provide better and more up to date information. In both the electric and gas industries there are also requirements around equipment and facilities inspections. When data is spread across multiple files, gathering information on inspection history and current inspection requirements is very cumbersome. Inspection management compliance is greatly simplified when all data is included in a single seamless database. The communications industry faces many of the same concerns and issues as the utility industry. Communication companies are driven by the competitive nature of the industry to have streamlined capabilities, and the availability of better information for service issues and problem solving. Better information generally means information that is more accessible. Management of the information within a seamless enterprise solution improves their capabilities over storage of the data across multiple files. Running Together Technology changes and advancements have provided reasons to look to expanding from CAD based to Enterprise GIS. With the current state of the GIS industry, systems are available that run with CAD software at the user interface, and full scale enterprise solutions at the server or “back-end” level. This means that at the user level, the change from CAD to Enterprise will be almost unnoticeable! Impacts to user productivity can be almost non-existent, and general user acceptance can be improved! Going from CAD to Enterprise can be a much smaller step with today’s technologies. This industry change is significant! The ability to mix a CAD based graphics solution with an enterprise GIS solution provides additional benefits not generally available with earlier enterprise GIS solutions. CAD based graphic solutions have generally kept pace with Microsoft in terms of ease of use, etc. CAD based graphic solutions are generally desktop software solutions that function more like PC based software products, and are generally more compatible with Microsoft operating system capabilities. Interaction with other MS Windows based applications including MS Office means users can operate their GIS Solution with the same type of windows like operations that they have become familiar with using MS Office, and that are very intuitive to computer users today. In addition, functions like copy – paste to move map graphics into spreadsheets or documents, or information from spreadsheets or documents into the map frame or a plot, become simple operations. Other operations such as printing and plotting, import of contractor development (sub-division) drawings, import or conversion of manual drawn and/or digital data into the GIS database, export of data to outside organizations, and collaborating or overlaying of diverse data on screen are all well developed capabilities in CAD based graphic solutions. Running a CAD based solution as the user interface to an enterprise GIS solution brings these important capabilities into the enterprise GIS world with no special or proprietary development. The Road So what is the road like? What are the important notes and guidelines that can help? Based on the experiences of others, the following categories are important: Existing Data Organization Data Modeling Data Migration Data Symbolization Applications User Training These items listed will be discussed in more detail, and relative to the general order they should be considered in. Step 1 - Existing Data Organization In the process of moving from CAD to Enterprise GIS, a very important step is to gain an understanding of the data quality relative to the available CAD files and associated attribute data sources. A determination of the level of organization that exists in the data is necessary. For instance, in the CAD files, it is important to understand to what extent the layer controls and object class organization have been adhered to and controlled. Also, for the data files and/or the extended entity or object data, it is important to understand to what extent data integrity rules and legal values have been adhered to. Step 2 - Data Modeling In an enterprise solution, the concept of a data model is necessary so that the information that will be stored and managed by the system will be useful from the perspective of the ability to investigate the information and perform queries where meaningful results are returned. Decisions will need to be made pertaining to the data model for the resulting enterprise solution prior to moving ahead. If the CAD files and associated attribute data are well organized, many aspects of a data model may already exist. Those aspects may already be utilized by the organization for facilities management information. Depending on the extent to which this is the case, it may be very beneficial for the resulting enterprise solution data model to be developed from and in conjunction with existing data format. In some cases, even if the CAD files and associated attribute data are well organized, the organization may not yet have built information requests and processes specific to this organization. For this case, it could be that there is less work involved in utilizing an existing data model available from the enterprise solution provider, and adapting the vendor’s data model together with the existing data from the CAD files. In this case, the goal would be to simply account for and confirm that all useful information available in the CAD file data will be available and accessible in the new data model. This can be done with a simple gap analysis performed between the existing data and the new data model. Step 3 - Data Migration If the CAD files and associated attribute data are well organized, the information can be moved from the existing format into Oracle database tables using several methods. Some enterprise solutions provide data classification capabilities or data scraping capabilities that will perform much of the work of moving the data into Oracle tables. Customization will likely be required for capture of the attached object or extended entity data in the specific format of the files. If the CAD files and associated attribute data are not reasonably well organized, a data clean-up process may be necessary. The data clean-up process will most likely involve a manual opening and review of each file to confirm organization of all feature types onto prescribed layers based on some predefined scheme. Additionally, review of the attribute data may be required if values that are unexpected show up when attempting to migrate the data. Alternatively it may be helpful to move the attribute information into Oracle initially with the data integrity and legal value controls relaxed, and perform data manipulation and clean-up scripts there. Large amounts of the attribute values may be able to be repaired fairly simply through queries and scripts, and thus may be easier to repair by allowing out-of-tolerance attribute data to be migrated into the enterprise solution and repaired there. This is especially true if the available tools in the existing CAD solution are not capable or well suited for this type of data manipulation. Step 4 - Data Symbolization When preparing to migrate the data into an enterprise solution, one of the important details is deciding and obtaining agreement on how the data will be symbolized in the enterprise GIS. Depending on the size of the organization and the numbers of interested parties, this process can be a difficult wrestling match of opinions. Organizations can choose to manage and dictate adherence to one set of symbology across the entire organization, or they may opt for regionalized symbolization to appease one or more groups of users or managers. Once the data is in the Oracle tables, most enterprise GIS solutions use attribute driven symbology. This means that rendering of the features can be controlled by their attribute values (i.e. a switch or valve can appear differently based on the attribute of closed or open). Also, enterprise solutions generally can provide the capabilities to symbolize the data into multiple formats depending on user class, etc. This can be very beneficial since different views can improve the usability of the information on the screen or in the subsequent paper maps. Step 5 - Applications When moving from a CAD based GIS to an enterprise GIS solution, user acceptance will be a significant factor in the success as well as the length of time required for the transition to be successful. One extremely helpful factor in gaining the user acceptance is to develop any new features and functionality in the enterprise GIS using similar work flow and process actions where possible. This is sometime not possible if part of the justification of the overall project is the business process improvements that are to be gained by changing the existing processes. Step 6 - User Training Enterprise solutions require user training. Minimization of the changes in the user interface can reduce the amount of training required. If an enterprise solution that uses a CAD based graphics solution for the user interface is adopted, training may be able to be minimized to simply reviewing the minor adjustments and nuances of the enterprise GIS. Other Important Issues (Bumps In the Road) As with nearly all information systems projects, lack of understanding of the significance of the project in terms of either budgetary requirements or level of effort required can be a serious impediment to maintaining management support and confidence. Specific to the move from CAD to enterprise GIS, one of the most discouraging and potentially costly pitfalls can be skipping or under estimating the importance of the first step (Step 1 – Existing Data Organization) mentioned above. Projects can come to a screeching halt because of a lack of understanding of the real data quality prior to beginning the process. Attempting to migrate the data into an organized data structure when the data is not well enough organized for an automated process to follow is a “show stopper”. When this happens, the realization follows that the only way to an enterprise GIS solution involves data clean-up that may be costly and will almost certainly be time consuming. Similarly, not taking seriously the importance of the data model can end up limiting the types of additional applications that can be added to the system as it matures. Some schools of thought would argue that the data model can be adjusted at nearly any time throughout the life cycle of the solution in order to accommodate additional applications. While this is true, adjustment of the data model after the enterprise GIS is in production and loaded with data is more difficult, and may involve exporting and importing entire data sets, etc. Another approach might be to include all the features and attributes that can be conceived as potentially valuable for future applications, and simply leaving the fields blank or null, or filling them with default values. Lastly, not recognizing the importance of user satisfaction and user acceptance in the system selection and development phase can cause major delays, if not failure, in the implementation phase. With current technology, it is possible to go from CAD based to enterprise GIS without changing the CAD based solution at the user interface. This can greatly minimize the user acceptance issue since only minor changes to the user’s process on a familiar interface would be more readily accepted. End Results Geographic information is beneficial. The ability to visualize the aspect of location relative to the other available information improves the decision process and the overall operations efficiencies and effectiveness. When this geographic information is expanded into an enterprise GIS solution, it becomes a more integrated and fluid part of the information systems capabilities of an organization. With an enterprise GIS, other systems can be developed to make decisions which include the geographic component of the data without human intervention. And operations systems can be built to leverage the geographical component of the data. For instance, construction and inspections jobs that are near to each can be flagged, and the operations system (work management) can suggest they be scheduled together to save travel time. There are many additional examples of this type of savings. The road from CAD to enterprise is a road that has been traveled successfully by many. When traveled carefully, it can lead an organization into a world of expanded capabilities and benefits. Those that have already traveled the road, and those that are making the move today, will improve their potential to emerge as leaders in their industries in the future. | ||
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