One of my favorite parts about the fall season are the many ways it brings us together with those around us in ways we don’t have the opportunity to do other times of the year. Kids group-up and visit neighbors on Halloween, and family members stop their busy lives to gather for Thanksgiving. On Saturdays, universities and alumni band together for one football game, and on Sunday entire regions unite to cheer-on another team. There are many things this time of year that allow us to foster these important relationships, or at the very least provide us an excuse to tailgate and fry turkeys with those around us.

In many ways, GIS at gas utilities is undergoing a change of season as well. As the technology continues to evolve, particularly with UPDM and utility network, GIS is growing to serve as the system of record to support regulatory requirements, field operations, preventative maintenance, and much more than organizations may have envisioned a decade ago.

As the SSP team continues to implement the latest GIS technology at pipeline operators around the country, I wanted to highlight a few different ways I’ve seen this process build unity among the data and teams across these organization.

A SHARED FOUNDATION

It all starts with the data. Building the groundwork for a modern GIS starts with bringing your data together into a sophisticated model that can leverage the tools and platforms utilities demand now and in the future. This process likely means merging several (sometimes more than a dozen) of feature classes from your legacy Geometric Network into the Utility Pipeline Data Model (UPDM).

The UPDM is a template model that provides an essential starting point for implementing a Pipeline Utility Network, and mandates that all networked assets consolidate into 4 key feature classes: Lines, Junctions, Devices, and Assemblies. This model provides the detail needed to maintain complex gas networks with Utility Network tools, while also meeting performance requirements to enable better visualization and analytics of assets by desktop, web, and mobile users across the organization.

In some ways, this new model is also bringing your data closer together with the assets they represent in the field.  With increasing pressure to know more about all aspects of their facilities, utilities are looking to UPDM with the goal of developing and maintaining a “digital twin” of field assets in the GIS system. This enables GIS to grow from a simple facility mapping tool to taking a more central role in network operations by enabling industry-specific detail and workflows.

Building (and moving data into) a UPDM-based model that meets the specific needs of your organization takes teamwork, collaboration, and time. But, we still need somewhere to live while the new house is being built. We must continue daily updates to the current data, and simultaneously use that data to implement the future system. In order to bridge this gap, SSP Sync tools can be used to migrate current data into utility network with a seamless and iterative process. By keeping the current environment, integrations, and workflows in place, Sync enables utilities to unite the work and data of today with the system of the future.

WELLHEAD TO METER

As the number of vertically integrated gas companies continues to rise, there’s an increased need to manage these historically separate models on a single platform. However, while the underlying infrastructure of Transmission and Distribution systems may be similar (pipes, valves, fittings, etc.), each system has its own distinct data requirements to meet their critical operational and regulatory needs.

Enter UPDM, which establishes a common, industry-specific model for assets across the entire network. With this single system of record, gas operators can better manage inspection programs, DIMP and TIMP requirements, integrate with asset management systems, and ultimately work safer and more efficiently by maximizing knowledge of the complete system.

Along with bridging the entire system together with a connected network, UPDM also enables the linear-referenced risk information for transmission pipeline to be managed simultaneously. By using ArcGIS Pipeline Referencing tools in conjunction with the linear referenced details associated with the data in UPDM, the different needs of transmission and distribution can be met with a single database.

At SSP, we’ve been busy working with a number of these organizations to modernize their GIS in ways that meets the growing needs of vertically integrated gas utilities. Working with teams from across the utility in a collaborative process has enabled everyone to pursue a shared vision for a better work life and safer community through improved GIS technology.

ENGAGING EVERYONE

The hard work of moving to this new technology isn’t just about improving the lives of the GIS users, it’s also about creating an infrastructure for teams across a gas utility to better utilize spatial information. The services-based architecture behind the utility network makes the powerful analysis and modeling capabilities available across nearly any mobile device or web application. When coupled with ArcGIS Runtime technology, utilities are better able than ever to take advantage of all ArcGIS functionality, online or offline, across all platforms.

Bringing these capabilities to life for utilities continues to be a major focus for both ESRI and SSP. One recent announcement from ESRI was a new utilities track as of ArcGIS Runtime 100.6. My hope is that this roadmap will work to further combine runtime and utility network capabilities to enable gas industry-specific workflows. SSP MIMS leverages this same technology to enable many powerful solutions to field crews and teams across many utilities today and will similarly continue to support new and exciting workflows as the technology evolves.

When utilities have this services-based infrastructure in conjunction with UPDM, the needs of many different groups can be met with focused and configurable applications. Operations Dashboards can provide executives up-to-date system modernization statistics. CSR’s can better communicate outage information to customers with up-to-date maps and information. Construction and work activity can be managed in more detail through single, more streamlined integrations. The bottom line is there’s more opportunity than ever to get the right data to the right people at any time, and the examples are growing every day.

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER

There are many ways that GIS modernization is uniting the data, people, and workflows that drive a gas utility. With a stronger foundation of data and technology, companies will be able to meet increasing regulatory requirements and technology demands now and in the future. As you go through this journey, just as the fall season passes us by, I encourage you to explore new and better ways to unite with those around you to make the most of the season.