Evolution into the Gas Digital Twin | SSP iLLUMINATE 2020

00:00 thank you all for joining um and welcome to today's illuminate webinar um today's topic is evolution into the
00:09 gas digital twin before we begin we wanted to let you know this webinar
00:14 will run approximately 30 minutes and we will have time on the back end for questions
00:23 your speakers today are clark wiley and russell webb
00:28 and clark is the director of pipeline here at ssp um he's been working in gis pipeline
00:37 software solutions integrity management and data management for over 15 years
00:42 we're also joined by russell webb and he is the supervisor of gas system integration at mlgw his primary
00:50 responsibilities for the tech past 10 years have been transmission integration management
00:56 and distribution integration management so just a note um we will be conducting
01:02 a formal q a session uh following this webinar so if you do have questions please use the question icon in the go
01:10 to webinar panel and then finally a recorded version of
01:15 this webinar will be made available for everyone at a later date so with that i'm going to go ahead and
01:22 pass it over to clark here thanks carrie and thanks everyone for joining today we
01:29 obviously wish we were in person but it's going to have to do this year so welcome to my home office and
01:35 hopefully you enjoy the presentation i'll be presenting today and russ will be joining us after the presentation for
01:41 question and answers so please hang on to those for us let's start with a bit of an overview on
01:47 memphis like gas and water or mlgw they deliver three commodities electric
01:53 gas and water to the citizens of shelby county more specifically memphis tennessee
01:58 on the gas side they have both transmission high pressure distribution and distribution assets for transmission
02:04 they have over 200 miles of regulated assets fed from seven transmission gait stations as well as over 62
02:12 regulator stations 200 plus farm tabs and ultimately we manage these as 22
02:18 linearly reference routes this is how we can report off of or set different inspections in our intervals
02:24 and how we establish kind of the baseline moving into that future state and that system of record
02:31 on the distribution side they provide over 300 000 customers natural gas within shelby county as well as over
02:38 four thousand miles of maine they deliver nearly 40 billion cubic feet each year
02:44 so a substantial size and a great customer of ssp we've been working with them a long time
02:49 over many upgrades many technology implementations and and the work that we'll walk through today
02:56 so when we think about gis gis really has evolved over time and it started as a a spatial map making
03:04 tool that has evolved into some more simple tracing network management analytics but with
03:10 the advancement and advancement advancement within the esri technology as well as
03:16 computing power we have been able to utilize gis to not only just manage it as as
03:22 editing or managing your network or changes but really understanding gis as your system
03:29 of record and using it as such when we're working with not only mlgw but a lot of
03:34 our large customers and and we're looking at upgrades and utility network implementations and
03:41 major system of record advancements a lot of the time the first thing that we ask is what
03:46 is your system of record is it asset management today is it gis is a combination of both and where do we
03:53 want it in the future it's a big key to understanding and being able to have a successful implementation of your
04:00 gis and technology there's some great esri slides that help visualize that concept but as we
04:08 look at the system of record up here in our top left corner and being able to incorporate that into the system of
04:14 insight being able to use that system of record as not only a data repository but being able to analyze and understand where our
04:21 weak points are where our highest risk of our system is where low pressure where we might have gaps in information
04:27 where we can do some advanced analytics in the same time looking at is a system of of engagement
04:33 where do our users and our organizations and even the public engage with our information internally is that
04:39 through a web app is that through desktop applications through our field crews what mobility tools do we use where are we using paper
04:46 today and where can we utilize technology and digital formats in the future
04:51 so understanding the complete gis as a whole is very important because when we reference a digital twin that is driven
04:57 off the system of record but is also driven off of the system of insight and system of engagement
05:03 a twin could be driven off of a piece of paper that's entered into gis but if someone doesn't have a way to
05:08 interact with that then that true digital twin does not exist so in my mind that digital twin
05:14 encompasses everything through that network of location as well as all the variables within the gis
05:20 as it and the technology on top of it gis obviously starts with location and
05:26 understanding your gas network is driven through location the connectivity
05:32 any real-time information that we want to start looking at into our gis asset information customer and bringing
05:39 all of that together when we are starting to evaluate our needs and not only looking at regulatory drivers but
05:46 needs of implementing a complete system of record in gis we need to kind of bring that back a
05:52 little bit and understand where can we gather all of our information together to support that digital twinning system
05:58 of record because it's your crews out in the field it's the mobility and data gathering it's the customers and the information
06:04 there because upstream of that we can look towards outage management and tracing of our network and managing the continual maintenance
06:11 and as building and maintenance records that come into our gis so it's really the complete picture
06:17 of your entire network through location through the what through the where the how when and why
06:23 and those are the questions that we want to answer through our gis so a complete gis is driven based off of
06:30 again the customers the overall asset management the safety network management and innovation
06:37 so when we sat down with mlgw we wanted to understand what do you consider your digital twin
06:43 and where do we want to get with your particular project because if we just have the customer information but we don't have service
06:49 pipe to connect to the main to be able to trace to where we understand customers uh may be affected
06:56 how is how is that going to be truly a system or record or digital twin if we have a point for a
07:01 regulator station but don't represent all the assets how are we going to send crews out there to inspect individual
07:07 assets within that regular station or even trace through that if we're looking at gaps within our
07:13 transmission or mains to calculate maop how we can import that data and be able to to
07:19 manage that effectively so it's customers it's asset management and ultimately it's safety of your
07:24 system being able to safely deliver natural gas is the utmost utmost importance and let's leverage the
07:31 data let's leverage the technology and let's leverage the work that our fuel crews do to be more efficient
07:37 but also safely delivering the gas being the utmost importance
07:42 so if we look at this mlgw and and ssp we came together to focus on some of
07:47 these aspects and looked at what do we have today and where do we want to go tomorrow and again this is an important point to
07:55 to representing your gis because a true digital twin ultimately might have to be 3d or have a
08:01 lot of information that has to be gathered over time so what is our digital twin today and then
08:06 where do we want to get there tomorrow is it looking and saying i want to replace every single
08:11 paper process and make that digital that's a great step what are my asset management use cases
08:18 from gis or asset management those bi-directional data sharing points
08:23 the round-trip use case of that asset management and that individual stick a pipe or junction or device when and where
08:31 should data be entered when and where is it entered today is that entered back in the office after we get a paper form today but we want to
08:38 enter that in the field how much do we want to put out along the field where do we want to be barcoding
08:44 information into our devices in the field in the ditch how are we bringing that data back in
08:49 who needs access and how does it support their job how can we shorten timelines within your
08:56 organization from posting data to sending out new inspections to to work management
09:01 time savings equals money saving so who needs access and how does it support their job
09:06 the president should access a read-only dashboard that understands where our work crews are the number of miles of our assets and
09:13 nice dashboards but our integrity manager wants to see exactly when our immediates have been repaired or
09:20 180-day anomalies are scheduled for for a review or bell hole inspection
09:26 or understanding when that next direct assessment or ili is in our system so who needs access and
09:33 what do they need access to is very important and then ultimately what level of detail
09:38 do we need to gather to create a true system of record in the office
09:44 versus the field and versus reporting where do those need to exist how do we structure the data model how do we
09:49 structure the gis and how do we optimize that so that gets us into our digital twin
09:56 and what does that really mean to you right our advancement in technology has
10:01 enabled us to expect information on our devices if i want to look up a local restaurant
10:07 i can see their reviews i can see directions to that particular establishment i can pull up pictures of individual
10:16 things on the menu to that to see if i i like that in that dish or i might like that dish or
10:21 not why should we not have a similar experience within our gis and our asset repositories at any point
10:28 in time i should be able to click on an asset i should be able to see the historical information around it when
10:34 was that place what was the original work order order who was the original contract team when was the last
10:40 inspection pictures of that and ultimately directions to that location how does that interact
10:45 interact with my system and being able to understand and have that connectivity and the experience that we expect on a
10:52 day-to-day basis with our gas assets it's a user expectations and we have the it
10:58 modernization to do that technology is far outpacing our system knowledge
11:03 we have the ability to do great things through ai and advanced analytics and the computing
11:08 power there's so many things we can do on the cloud there's so many things we can do with predictive analytics
11:14 but we don't even have the baseline to understand what our gas network is or what assets are out there or even
11:20 exactly where they are sometimes they're on the wrong side of the street in our gis and we need to locate those and
11:25 understand what they are if we have gaps in information from our records we need to understand that we need to go out to do
11:31 non-destructive testing or understand we need to take that offline and redo a pressure test to be able to
11:37 get the actual information and understand our true attribution details of our
11:43 system to be able to support additional maximum allowable operating pressure but also an understanding and
11:49 access of our data that availability so what is your digital twin
11:55 what do you need to do to be able to support that it might just be this half of the pie
12:02 and that's where we looked at it for mlgw let's look at the future innovations and let's look at that future network
12:08 management a lot of that's still in gas control a lot of that's just through uh network pressure modeling but if we get
12:14 this top quadrant of this pi then we're going to be in great shape we're going to be automated regulatory reporting we're
12:21 going to be automating our mpms we're going to understand asset performance as we get into advanced metering being
12:27 able to consume that information shortening the design and planning and as building timelines but also getting a
12:34 complete understanding of every historical record and tying that to our gis the what
12:39 where when how and why so your digital twin it's that system
12:46 knowledge it's the data accuracy it's going to the vaults it's going to those locations it's gathering
12:52 the the documents it's scanning those in it's taking the effort to be able to get all of that
12:57 information aligned to your gis create new features or assets in gis if
13:03 you need to to get a baseline that you can then grow into the gis into the advanced analytics into the
13:10 additional network management and really start to drive key decisions within your gis but again without that
13:16 system of record without your digital twin we can't get there and we'll have defaults in place for different
13:23 analytics or we'll have gaps in our data or gaps in connectivity and our inability to really grow into
13:29 something like the utility network because of our inability to to fill those gaps so it starts today it
13:35 starts filling in that data to create your digital twin where is that data where is that
13:40 document and and making that available to the end user and ultimately having the the
13:47 insight and ability to project out to what are continual maintenance what does our design process look like what do we want
13:53 mobility to be because that's a key key part in understanding how we structure your gis
13:59 how we incorporate data and how we make it available to the end user
14:04 again technology is outpacing our system knowledge we have to be able to catch up so what
14:09 is your digital twin and where do you want to get it for mlgw we started at the beginning
14:17 where is all of our information and what do we have today the legacy gis and data and workflows
14:23 and we walked through and whiteboarded we got all the different groups together but it was a combined gas distribution and gas
14:30 transmission so we need to linear reference our assets uh we were utilizing arc fm to manage
14:35 transmission and distribution networks and there was a lot of paper documents
14:41 there was manual reporting there was laser fish there was vaults there was a lot of locations where
14:46 where mlgw needed to scan and create major initiatives to be able to support that data gathering and understanding of
14:53 their system and they started this a long time ago a lot sooner than most actually and and
14:59 were able to get through this but it was it was a significant effort and and they had some
15:04 ability to project out and say we're going to do this today we're going to go through the pain to get that done to understand
15:09 everything we have to be able to operate our system with the knowledge that we need and then advance with the technology because we
15:16 have that knowledge some of the project goals from the team was a validation and collection of all
15:21 the fins the data input so looking at our films of reporting and saying where where do we have any gaps where we have
15:27 unknowns where do we have the tvc a permanent implementation of the maop record uh
15:33 verification procedure so establishing technology and workflows for the future state
15:38 after gathering all of the historical records to get that baseline establishing the gis is the main
15:44 repository for access previously we'd have vaults or or um cabinets or a work order number
15:52 where users would have to go and find the work order find the document find the information but having gis has
15:57 that repository and true system of record to link that information and make that available
16:03 and ultimately establishing where can gis support their overall data needs and starting to think outside of just the
16:09 data gathering but implementing that and making it available to other users the field etcetera
16:17 we had to first locate all of the maop related documents and mlgw went through a major process to to
16:23 go through that again ensure that they were all scanned index categorized what is it is it a pressure test charge is that
16:29 is a main card is a service record all of that information capturing the malp related information
16:35 linking that to individual assets within the gis tying that not only document and location
16:41 within the document management but potentially creating new features along the way where there was potentially a horizontal directional
16:47 drill under a road and or a casing removed and updates that needed to be done gis
16:52 so it was it was a multi-step process to not only get all the information in but then update the gis with the best
16:59 representation all of that was then used to confirm the maop right if there were any gaps in
17:06 that there were field validations done if they were not then we were able to calculate the malp and the original
17:11 design and the operating pressure and understanding to ultimately populate that fun part q on the femzer report from a
17:19 senior management side they often have some other goals but it was a value added to the company being
17:24 able to minimize time from what the work order is what the asset to go find it to send it out
17:30 to the field to have the documentation handing paper but really access to the data and
17:36 streamlining those workflows that creates time savings which ultimately in all the data we were able
17:42 to validate the maop we can understand what we had today if there were any gaps
17:48 understanding that that what we were running our pressure at through the historical documents and everything that was in our gis
17:54 and ultimately creating that enterprise system repository that go to where whether it's gas engineering or or
18:00 work management or scheduling or folks on the asset management side they knew where to go for that
18:06 information and that was gis so it really started about where's the
18:12 information and there were ultimately 230 locations that we found and those range from different service
18:18 centers to store rooms offices cubicles um you know they it was just everywhere
18:24 and and we had to gather those and mlgw went through that process to gather those scandals
18:30 and then got those entered into gis that included paper maps historical laser fish
18:36 film spool view data some gis some some personal geo databases file geodatabases some enterprise gis
18:44 mainframe right paper records all of that was included and all that was accounted for
18:50 and then 15 different type of types of records too so when we went through and looked at all the different metadata
18:56 we defined those and set the different record and document types so that it could be tied to gis what
19:03 individual attributes was that verifying because on the verifiable traceable and complete we needed to say
19:09 this mtr is verifying my nominal diameter my wall thickness the the grade and
19:16 information around that so we not only had the type but what it was verified by and
19:22 what it was verifying so down to the attribute level so that range asset or individual point
19:29 asset within our gas network was tied to a document and then tied to what did it verify and so
19:35 there's a system and ranking that needed to be in place to be able to support this did an mtr
19:41 win over additional documents or if i did not have an mtr what two documents would you need to be
19:47 able to say this is verifiable traceable complete and reliable and that's important because it's ultimately reported to the
19:54 government and and through our regulatory requirements and and mao meop validation to say that these are
20:01 valid inputs and we know that because it's a historical dock it's not necessarily from a notepad or
20:06 from engineer's mind to know hey this is what we've always run it at but this is tied to an actual po and order
20:14 information that we have from our historical system so that we've located the line and we have all the information
20:19 to it and we're comfortable operating the gas at that pressure establishing
20:24 that maop building up the system of record building up those representations through these documents
20:31 and records drives so many different things it drives that pressure we can run the system at
20:36 we might have to lower it which could affect uh profitability within your organization because we don't necessarily have a a
20:43 record or we need to re-pressure test or we found out the design pressure there's a limiting factor on a particular
20:49 fitting and can't run it at what we're running it at there's also the subsequent analytics
20:55 being able to look at our potential impact radius for our hca and understanding what that pressure is
21:01 and the different diameters so any of those changes from the location of the line shifting to the attributes drives hcas
21:08 drives changes in hd size changes in inspections over time and how we manage those the same thing with dot class and our
21:16 placement of the line and understanding of uh that information obviously that also drives
21:22 when it was placed in our risk our likelihood of failure probabilistic models relative models and how we can
21:28 incorporate the the likelihood of failure and also the consequence of failure in those
21:34 areas when do we expect failures based off of all of the information across our system
21:40 and being able to analyze that and where can we start to make strategic and educated decisions
21:45 about replacement within our system versus just replacing certain areas at a certain time we can
21:51 have all the information to understand what what we have where is it
21:56 advanced analytics and ultimately being able to make educated and and wise decisions with our capital
22:04 dollars to support our our infrastructure and where we want it replaced
22:10 so some of the project achievements we really were able to advance the arcgis enterprise we were on a legacy version
22:17 of arcgis so there were some upgrades there this enabled that web enablement and access to our system as as all of the
22:24 data was gathered in we focused on the utility pipeline data model and started with the transmission
22:30 assets first those were first to go as we were able to linearly reference those introduce arcgis pro some of the change
22:37 management some of the web some of the reporting some of the weather web app builder while mlgw continued to
22:43 support the growth of the gis and additional tools around that to
22:48 manage the entire gas assets so the intent is through a subsequent phase where we're going to
22:54 merge in the distribution into un uh but really focused on uh the the transmission
22:59 side and data gathering we took all of the records uh to support mlgw in
23:06 the network but focused on getting uh the transmission side up into the the updm model
23:12 the automated regulatory reporting was key that was taking uh uh us four to six weeks based off of uh
23:19 pulling all together all that information and now it's reported through an automated dashboard
23:25 right so throughout the year uh engineers and and the integrity management team can work with the gis
23:31 and gis analysts to say circle different areas or annotate or identify areas where they see gaps based
23:38 off the regulatory reporting so you can work top down it's a substantial shift from working from the gis
23:44 up and then being able having to match those different parts and mileages together at the end it's often off a
23:51 little bit you might not be able to submit it because of those delta differences so if we work from the report
23:56 down and we say this looks like a gap or why is this not verified and being able to drill down with those
24:02 individual areas and working with the analyst and working with the document management and asset management teams
24:08 to be able to support that hey where is this and what do we have so it was it was a nice shift to be able to be
24:14 working on both ends of it to work towards the holistic system of record and gis repository
24:21 almost 400 000 records were scanned verified reviewed attributed and linked into the gis so a
24:28 massive undertaking with a lot of streamlined workflows that were addressed or some that are planned
24:33 for future right but a lot were addressed in terms of how do we gather data how do we attach new documents
24:39 how do we design an as built those are big questions and those are big questions as you look at upgrading your system and creating
24:46 this repository this digital twin this this data access point it transforms
24:51 your business and you have to be able to look at those different variables and understand what those are we were able to to validate maop across
24:58 the system we were doing that for years and calculating that through through spreadsheets and
25:03 and understanding what pressures they were running at and doing that well below design but having the actual
25:09 documents tied into gis and running the calculations and using those different variables
25:14 makes it much easier and then we can see the results we can visualize those and we can understand in context
25:20 with those documents how those work together and then ultimately that enterprise system repository and
25:26 building that out and how we utilize that today and and being able to
25:31 to support uh the the the gis and access to it moving forward
25:39 so what were the next steps and what are the next steps we focused on mobility and continual
25:44 collection in the field we looked at the utility network now that we've gathered all that information and gotten to this point we can say
25:50 what are our engineering practices and how does that fit with our base un rules right with that intelligent network coming we
25:58 have the ability now to look at engineering rules and how that matches our data gathering and data editing and
26:03 data workflows there are a lot of rules to validate that network topology and we see a lot of
26:08 times in these projects that that's a big gap in the thing that we need to look at so having gathered all the data we have
26:15 a great baseline to now understand what do we need to have a successful u n implementation
26:21 and where do we potentially have any further gaps maybe maybe there's a reducer that didn't come across uh through our document gathering
26:29 that we need and and not a huge deal in our geometric network but we would need that transition within our utility network
26:35 so we can now evolve and start to look at our next few our next future state and see where do
26:41 we need to prepare where do we need to potentially update current editing workflows to support that
26:47 next move station representations right so these were points within mlgw system
26:53 we gathered all the documents we we pulled in that information and now we're looking at how we best represent
26:59 that through 3d not sure if you saw a previous uh presentation on ai and machine learning well there's
27:06 opportunities there to be able to gather from regulator station pictures and represent those in a nice way within
27:11 that future state so where do we continue to collect that information to support the documents and data that
27:17 we have from this type of effort and then continual improvements and adoption of gis as we were able to
27:24 get the enterprise arches enterprise out we now have many many more users
27:29 opening gis and understanding where they need to open gis is that through the web
27:34 is that through a web app is that through their mobile devices or viewers and understanding what your true digital
27:40 twin is and how you represent it in your organization and within your asset repository
27:47 no one organization's digital twin is going to be the same right so understand where you need to go
27:53 and where you need to take it for your end users to support knowledge of your system
27:59 the asset representation the what where when how and why something was entered
28:06 so if we go back to that complete gis take a step back and as you look to build up your asset
28:12 repository i know there's a lot of work to do but don't just look at it as a document
28:18 gathering document linking gis entry into the system of record
28:23 take the opportunity to be able to evaluate where you want to go what is your digital twin and how can
28:29 you make that successful again thanks everyone for joining today hopefully this was valuable and
28:35 understanding where we like to take these types of projects and understanding that yeah it's not only gathering data
28:42 but it is really evaluating your business process evaluating how you're managing data
28:47 evaluating how users access that information hopefully you gleaned a little information from us
28:52 today and with that we'll open it up for questions and answers
28:59 okay thank you for that um that was good now we have um we do have a few questions already and i
29:06 know russ is joining us now so um if you guys want to make sure your
29:13 phones are off mute and we'll start with the first question so how long did it take
29:20 to scan all your records and i don't know which one of you want
29:25 to answer that one yeah russ you want to take that one
29:35 yeah i'll start i think russ is uh oh there we go i think he's coming back in here hey yeah
29:43 did i miss the question where are we
29:48 um the last question was uh how long did it take to scan the all the records that we had just
29:54 discussed through the presentation yeah i noticed that uh there was some background information
29:59 in the presentation about just the different locations we had to go to things like that so keep in mind that
30:06 i'm including uh all of that work into the effort associated i was looking back
30:14 to some uh other documents just on the project for you know this has been
30:19 some years ago that we actually kicked this off but one of the first things mlgw did was
30:25 went out and rounded up 40 retirees that would be familiar with our documentation types
30:33 you know where is it available because i know one of the slides showed that there were several different
30:38 formats that we'd be going through and so of those 40 people
30:45 i saw one document that said that they assumed that they touched two million documents to sift out
30:52 the four hundred thousand that ultimately needed to be scanned in uh so in touching those you're giving
31:00 them a unique uh name so that you know you have a file name that ultimately can become a directory you
31:06 can sort through and then attach to gis is what we've
31:12 done here and uh so those 40 people worked a solid six months uh
31:20 and then at one point when i fully took over the project i bumped it up with another 30 of
31:28 data entry employees um just specifically pulling out anything that
31:34 wasn't readily accessible or you know object character recognition or that kind of stuff that they needed to type
31:42 back in um so at one point we had upwards of 70 people working on this project
31:48 uh and overall that lasted probably a year but we really once we hit that
31:55 peak and started using some data entry professionals we really started driving down the number
32:01 of retirees and then ultimately would cut those data entry people uh almost weekly
32:09 as we really started getting the plane on the ground or being comfortable with where we were
32:15 with uh the format of all of our documents so that's a very long answer but
32:22 uh you're talking over a million dollars invested by mlgw just
32:28 right out of the gate basically in response to the advisory bulletin that come out originally
32:37 awesome thanks russ all right next question what was the hardest part integrating
32:42 the records information into gis um okay yeah ross i can take
32:49 that one um so as as russ described and going through all the documents and data
32:55 gathering there was a a nice system and user interface that mlgw was using to enter the
33:01 information and that would catalog the metadata of the record
33:06 and the attribution for the maop uh reconfirmation as well as tbc
33:13 the hardest part was establishing that spatial location especially for areas
33:18 that might not have a start and end station value on our transmission assets and essentially conflating that between
33:27 the legacy gis through the upgrade and getting that into the correct spatial
33:32 location on the line based off of the best known information so that was really kind of
33:37 our biggest uh task at hand and then also being in the structuring the the records based
33:45 off of if we wanted to tie it to an individual asset versus tying it to the document range so
33:52 an example might be an mtr a material test record where uh
33:57 that's validating certain contributes that we wanted to tie that pipeline line
34:06 versus those were some of our challenges that we had um but certainly work through those and
34:12 work with the engineers to get our best placement and and get that spatialized and and accurately represented in the gis
34:22 okay thanks clark um okay let's see what is your definition of digital
34:28 twin okay yeah and i i spoke of that uh a bit
34:35 through the presentation and and it's different for each organization and that's where we want to you do
34:40 to evaluate that but um the the way i look at a digital twin it's it's different for different commodities and
34:46 different uh differently represented in that sense but for gas it's important to understand where is
34:53 that asset what is that asset when was it placed in the ground and the historical legacy information so
34:60 if we think about a digital twin let's think about it for today's purposes and regulatory requirements around
35:06 traceable verifiable complete i think a digital twin of the future is a bit different because that's a 3d representation
35:13 potentially for augmented reality and new tools um so in in those scenarios we have to
35:19 evaluate what is your digital twin today right and it's accessing the data
35:24 all of your historical information and the best known information that you have within your system
35:30 utilizing the gis as that system of record thanks clark all right next question
35:37 which version of the updm model was used upm 2016 or upm updm 2018.
35:45 yeah we we started with 2016 uh as the data collection was going and
35:50 have continued to evolve based off of the changes uh released within uh each subsequent
35:57 model uh so even with the latest 2020 release and some future uh consolidation um efforts within mlgw
36:06 uh with legacy editing tools um on the distribution side in the future um we are looking to add
36:14 some of the changes within 20. so we evolved with that as those that model changes but but
36:19 again those updm uh data models are templates uh and they're made to extend to support uh
36:26 the the data needs of your organization and so we did that and certainly evolved with the model where uh additional
36:33 regulatory domain updates or astm standards came into play and and supported that as well
36:42 okay thanks for that let's see if i can get this is a long one are all of the
36:48 scanned documents stored in the geo database or did you employ a concept of integra
36:55 integrated external records management system if esri how did you if it was esri i
37:01 think what they're trying to say how did you gain buy-in from legal compliance
37:07 slash risk as this may appear to relinquish control from their standpoint so i'll answer
37:16 yep yeah i'll answer from the how and then uh russ i'll toss it over to
37:21 you in terms of continual records management but uh we went with the approach that we did
37:27 not add them as attachments in the enterprise geodatabase
37:32 the reason we went that direction was due to the size of a lot of these images and and a
37:39 existing uh data catalog we went through the process
37:44 to link those and so that they're now available through the web applications and linked and and verified down to the
37:52 attribute level so we went through that linking you have to be on the internal mlgw environment to pull up those links
37:60 but that was our process to not reinvent the the document management system but instead
38:06 to link and validate um and then potentially russ if you have any thoughts on kind of the the legal or
38:13 risk or continual storage of those anything bad there
38:18 i'm not a hundred percent that i'm following but like all of this is on our servers so we're
38:25 not too worried about it but uh continual records management i kind of took that as
38:31 you know during this project we identified the critical document that we want to capture and then we came
38:38 up with a naming convention for each so as an engineer is working on a design
38:44 we let know that at the end of the project we're going to want that these documents back and we've got
38:50 someone who will uh you know create file names and that and put it out there on that same
39:01 all right thanks guys next question do you have ili data attached
39:09 uh we don't do a lot of mlgw we've actually done
39:15 one run and that was just in the last couple of years uh on a new line that we were putting in
39:22 pba and we haven't got to the point where we
39:27 want to put that in the web map i see personally a lot of value there
39:32 um that's kind of one of our goals even as this project continues to make our
39:39 system more applicable we did go back and get all of our direct information
39:47 uh which you can imagine is thousands of pages of documents as well and attached them in their location
39:56 made that available to engineers moving forward uh just you know it's an opportunity to
40:02 get eyes on the pipe themselves with all the pictures that are taken and that kind of information
40:08 um for the ecda we we are there as far as incorporating
40:13 temp information uh but we just don't do enough ili right now to prioritize that
40:23 yet okay thanks for that um what
40:28 do you consider done in quotations oh that's a good follow-up to uh
40:36 the answer i just gave because we want to get our system pickable
40:43 this is just really the first stone of understanding you know
40:50 one of the key terms in a lot of the integrity management programs is you you don't always know
40:57 what you don't know and that's one of the toughest things to figure out is where are gaps and going about this in this manner
41:06 has really given us that opportunity to run kind of a gap analysis map of where our locations where we are
41:14 lacking on the data that we've determined to be necessary um so that'll be our
41:21 next step obviously you know over the next seven to ten years we'll be addressing any issues luckily
41:29 we didn't have a lot so it seems very manageable now that we've got this
41:35 project under our belt but this project was an undertaking but couldn't be more
41:43 proud of where we're at and the ability to to see where we need more data
41:48 if that equates to an additional direct assessment or ultimately uh you know abandoning
41:55 some pipe and doing an offset or something like that but that that's where we're headed seven
42:02 years seven to ten years and then hopefully along that same time frame we can
42:08 get some of these lines more applicable we're looking at converting some lines to distribution um
42:17 so all of that is kind of in the mix as to moving towards what we
42:24 hope would be done but i always have more of a continuous improvement mentality uh as
42:30 if there is no finish line you just keep pushing forward getting better uh prioritizing
42:37 what your next good bite of the apple would be so it's i don't really have a date
42:46 out there that i think we will be done but obviously in response to this uh the next seven to
42:53 ten years thank you russ all right next question another long one okay
42:58 how many of the workflows were built into esri technology versus an external work or asset management
43:04 system if external asset management will you be willing to share which system mlgw utilizes so
43:12 i'll answer from the gis and the the project standpoint um the the work that we described today
43:20 was being done at the same time that enterprise asset management
43:25 implementation was occurring and so through that effort it was a
43:32 really a collaborative approach to understand what the gis was to store
43:40 as the system of record from these documents um versus what asset management
43:47 was going to take from work order management
43:53 and and the capital improvement projects and then what we needed back from the eam
43:58 system if any um our our main focus here was getting the system
44:04 to a point where we had all legacy information and all documents tied to it
44:09 to then continue uh to update the um editing and continual maintenance
44:15 workflows with the esri tools so um the the part the first part of that question
44:21 around the esri editing workflow is we're utilizing the arcgis pipeline
44:27 referencing tools um and so now when those work packages come back in
44:32 uh that are that are often driven from the eam work management and asset management
44:39 side those are then entered in through the new workflows
44:44 while linking and indicating which attributes have been validated
44:50 through the documents that are being linked in the updated enterprise system so all
44:56 that's entered into that now um while also linking to the to the document management okay thanks
45:03 for that um we have quite a few questions here i hope we can get to all of them but
45:09 let's see do you have access to this in the field oh that's a good one we we are not
45:17 currently accessing the web map from the field but mlgw is definitely moving quickly
45:25 towards having that capability on every truck uh at which point it's just a matter of
45:32 getting everybody the link and getting them hands-on experience using
45:37 it it is definitely doable but i think our
45:42 primary focus was to gain the knowledge we needed on any
45:48 missing information missing data so that we could get out there to those locations and gather that data
45:55 so that's where we've been so far the design engineers have really taken it on in the last year and
46:02 embraced it uh clark helped us put together kind of a training manual
46:07 uh it's been very nice to be able to kick that over to them and give them the link to the web map
46:14 and let them go it's just mind-blowing to have all of this information at your fingertips
46:22 compared to where we were just a few years ago thanks russ all right next up
46:29 how did you get buy-in from senior management for this type of project
46:36 yeah so originally a mem's advisory bulletin had come out i wasn't on the project initially
46:44 they had a senior engineer over me that was handling it he was the
46:52 design engineering supervisor uh but he was very familiar with the
46:59 retirees that he wanted to call and bring back in and they just kind of used him to uh
47:05 build that team it initially uh for for those that are
47:13 involved in temp you you know this thing has been drug out for several years initially
47:20 when it dropped i think it was something like uh you have 12 months to do part of it and
47:28 you know 16 months 18 months to do uh maybe the part q so he was handling
47:36 it then so i wasn't heavily involved in getting the buy-in but we didn't we didn't see a lot of options
47:42 it looks like you either do something or you do nothing and when we decide to do
47:48 something we certainly take it on and that i don't believe that there was a
47:56 lot of trouble getting by from the top okay um if you have any questions please
48:04 use the question icon it looks like we have one more here unless more come in um
48:11 are you using wait are you are there any other areas you're using the esri product
48:18 uh yeah well we definitely have uh rolled out an app for leak survey
48:25 um that's been very um well received from those inspectors uh we've got
48:32 uh valve inspectors working with an app for valve maintenance um we're well on our way to having
48:40 corrosion control surveyors and technicians um interfacing with their software
48:47 through esri apps and then we'll move on to
48:52 some of the other gas operations groups from there uh corrosion control is just one of the
48:58 groups that was really stuck in the past as far as how they manage their documents and those kind of
49:05 things so we wanted to get them automated i've actually got and i guess this is kind of bleeding over into my
49:11 depth responsibilities as opposed to my temp but i've got a large project going
49:16 on we're calling gas records automation uh and really a lot of those ideas were
49:22 spawned through this effort uh with clark just kind of walking
49:28 walking through the wilderness with him uh i've learned quite a bit about how we can apply some of these
49:34 tools and it it's served very well for the needs of a
49:40 gas operator yeah and and to add to that uh i think one of
49:46 the things that we saw as arcgis enterprise continued to evolve was our ability to
49:53 use some of the web tools like operations dashboard
49:59 uh and so what we've been able to do is uh create a dashboard that represents
50:07 the femsa report uh and and what that allows us to do is based off of any edits within uh the
50:15 updm uh system it's it's updated to support
50:21 those mileage and all the different parts um outside of the inspection ones as we
50:26 indicated but all the parts just think about part q and the complexity of that um and so what what we saw was we
50:34 we got individuals who were weren't necessarily used to getting into heavy
50:41 gis desktop applications but were were using a url link on their desktop
50:47 to see the latest and greatest reporting values and and in those cases they're able to
50:53 easily identify uh things that might stick out and then work with the gis editing team
50:59 to start to dive in a little bit deeper so it just really started to expand once people got their hands on
51:05 the information and started to ask where certain things were or or updates and and we've just really seen
51:12 that organic growth of it all right thank you guys all right this may be our last one i'm not sure
51:18 are those all using survey123 or collector or both or maybe something else which is esri
51:24 based i believe it's both i i don't have off
51:29 the top of my head which group is using what but
51:34 i i feel like one went with collector and one went with survey yep that was it
51:42 and then uh there's for for viewing um mlgw
51:49 from a gis standpoint is is move into a uh enterprise runtime uh application
51:56 that actually ssps mems uh for for field viewing uh additionally so
52:02 there's some there's some tools going out there uh side by side with some of the base esri
52:08 uh implementation and inspections referenced by russell okay thanks for that that looks like it
52:15 that's it for our all of our questions thank you for joining us um and what we want to
52:21 invite you to the next webinar which is our final digital illuminate webinar
52:26 um titled tnd vegetation management with life cycle and mims this will be presented
52:33 by john feldkirk and ian martin on october 1st so i encourage you guys
52:40 to sign up at sspilluminate.com and if you have any additional questions
52:46 let us know and we can get answer have either russ or clark answer those
52:52 through email thank you so much