Greer CPW’s natural gas operations faced a critical challenge: the utility’s gas operations manager—who had been with the organization for 47 years—was retiring, and much of the system knowledge had been carried and maintained by him over decades of hands-on experience, alongside departmental records. The utility needed to modernize its GIS to capture institutional knowledge, improve downstream tracing for damage response, support regulatory compliance reporting, and enable field crews to rely on maps instead of calling supervisors for information.

Greer CPW migrated its natural gas network from a legacy geometric network to the ArcGIS Utility Network, completing the project in just over five months with only two internal GIS resources and support from SSP Innovations.

The Challenge

Before the Utility Network migration, Greer CPW’s natural gas operations relied on manual processes, static maps, and institutional knowledge to manage the network. When field crews needed to identify customers downstream of a gas line damage, they manually counted meters on a map or consulted departmental records tracking which regulator stations fed which subdivisions. Key network attributes—including pressure zones and cathodic protection systems—were maintained outside of GIS through the expertise of long-tenured operations staff, and the existing data model did not yet support reliable network tracing.

With the gas operations manager retiring, decades of institutional knowledge about the network was about to walk out the door. Paper maps and direct supervisor consultation remained standard practice for field crews. Modernizing the network system has become essential — not just to improve operational tools, but to build organizational resilience that could withstand workforce transitions and support the utility’s continued growth.

The Solution

Greer CPW migrated its natural gas network to ArcGIS Utility Network using SSP Innovations’ Accelerate implementation approach. The project included updating the data model, enabling editing and tracing in ArcGIS Pro, supporting integration needs, and providing targeted training. SSP created a parallel GIS environment so Greer CPW could migrate, test, and validate before going to production. The implementation followed a structured readiness process: data assessment, pilot migration, mock migration, and production migration.

Greer CPW completed targeted data cleanup before migration. The team standardized attributes and domains while avoiding unnecessary structural changes. Training was tailored to Greer CPW’s needs, combining Utility Network editing, ArcGIS administration, and ongoing support. The project maintained weekly touchpoints and delivered comprehensive post-go-live support. The entire upgrade was completed in five months.

The Results

Greer CPW completed its Utility Network migration in just over five months through the coordinated efforts of its Natural Gas Department, GIS team, and SSP Innovations. Field adoption was immediate and enthusiastic—personnel who had previously tended to rely on paper maps now use online maps on mobile devices for all work. Supervisors and managers can now run accurate downstream traces to identify affected customers during damage events, eliminating manual meter counting and spreadsheet lookups.

When Greer CPW develops models for future growth, the improved network topology has significantly streamlined the modeling process, reducing planning costs and accelerating the timeline from data delivery to actionable results.

Information captured through the work order process now automatically transfers back to GIS, giving management real-time visibility into system performance.

The project united gas operations, customer service, and billing in meaningful cross-departmental collaboration, strengthening shared confidence in the data across the organization. Most importantly, decades of institutional knowledge that was once carried by long-tenured personnel are now documented and preserved within the system for the entire organization to rely on. The utility is now positioned to migrate water and wastewater to Utility Network using lessons learned from gas.