AM/FM + GIS + WEB




A common enterprise portal, a common language, the deregulation of utilities, increasing focus on customer requirements-all contribute to the dramatic changes taking place in this industry space.


By Susan Smith

Little did I know when I began to do research for this article the number of aliases "AM/FM" (Automated Mapping/Facilities Management) has today. Because of the added dimension of GIS, AM/FM has been expanded to AM/FM/GIS, and most recently to Geospatial Information Technology, and is also known as Network Management Systems.

The driving force behind all these terms is the technology, reaching to encompass the new demands of the industry. As GIS systems evolve and improve, new solutions offer greater functionality that can no longer be described as automated mapping/facilities management only. For utility professionals, the quest for a way to link their enterprise applications may be over. The way to link them together and be able to access information from many disparate RDBMS and data formats has arrived in the form of the Internet and intranets.

A common enterprise portal, a common language, the deregulation of utilities, and subsequent increased focus on customer involvement on several levels-all contribute to the dramatic changes taking place in this industry space.

Issues of great impact to the AM/FM/Geospatial industry include enabling technologies such as spatial data engines, mobile and wireless communications, the use of CAD, the Web, utility and facilities-specific solutions and the standards evoked by the Open GIS Consortium (OGC).

These technologies can be sold separately or as one whole entity. In reply to the demand for one data source rather than isolated databases of information dotted across the enterprise, integration is an important part of the AM/FM/GIS/Geospatial landscape. Many vendors are working towards solutions that can seamlessly integrate the many disparate RDBMS that exist, with data that is in different formats.

Companies representative of somewhat different perspectives, all reaching the same goal, are covered here as examples of the ways that AM/FM, AM/FM/GIS, Geospatial Information Technology and/or Network Management Systems are being managed today.

Roxanne Cox-Drake, ESRI Electric and Gas Utility Marketing, expands the definition of AM/FM this way: "Utilities are branching out beyond the inventory and map placement of assets and facilities needed for tracking. Now they need additional layers of information, such as customers, competitors, and operational performance of their networks, presented graphically to speed decision making."

Once you have this information, Drake says, you can make decisions based upon those factors.When GIS is added to the Information Technology infrastructure of a utility, it enables the decision making process of AM/FM and many other utility functions. Spatial Data engines sitting atop a standard RDBMS help manage utility data, much of which has a spatial orientation. More recently added to the mix is the Internet and intranets, further enabling the distribution of information and streamlining work processes.

According to Dan Bowditch of Westech Information Systems Inc., in a paper presented at GIS 2001 in Vancouver, BC (The Geospatial Utility - More than Just Assets), work associated with a utility's assets is 80% geospatial in nature. "That is to say, 80% of it's asset information and work is also related to a point on the map…or a point in space. GIS functionality in utilities evolved as something called Automated Mapping/Facilities Management. Unintelligent mapping came first to record asset locations, followed by basic modeling of real world networks for analysis and planning plus a database to store attributes about the assets." Often, separate departments implemented separate GIS applications on separate GIS platforms. Consultants were hired to develop maps on GIS with no attention to what we know of as enterprise GIS today.

These images relate to a utility network and ESRI's ability to "trace" the network.

In contrast, geospatial information technology can help to do more than just locate a utility's assets-it can also provide support for various levels of staff involved in numerous utility processes such as "distribution design and construction, service restoration and transmission corridor management," according to Bowditch.

Issues of great impact to the AM/FM/Geospatial space include enabling technologies such as spatial data engines, mobile and wireless communications, the use of CAD, the Web, utility and facilities specific solutions and the standards evoked by the Open GIS Consortium (OGC).

These technologies can be sold separately or as one whole entity. In reply to the demand for one data source rather than isolated databases of information dotted across the enterprise, integration is an important part of the AM/FM/GIS/Geospatial landscape. Many vendors are working towards solutions that can seamlessly integrate the many disparate RDBMS that exist, with data that is in different formats.

Companies representative of somewhat different perspectives, all reaching the same goal, are covered here as examples of the ways that AM/FM, AM/FM/GIS, Geospatial Information Technology and/or Network Management Systems are being managed today.

Adding GIS

The addition of GIS to the AM/FM piece brings about several significant improvements that may or may not be visible to management at the time of implementation. Some of these improvements may include: job design, job engineering and estimating, integration with work management, integration with customer information, approval process, integration with planning and engineering, field information, integration with outage management, web-based connection, underground utility protection, vegetation management, National Weather Service Updates, vehicle location tracking, meter reading route management, underground utility protection, job/work routing, corporate building and land management and lightning strike information.

Once the system has been in production for a period of time, managers will see numerous possibilities for using the system for efficiency, quality and cost savings. Generally, with today's GIS, little or no development time is necessary to make adjustments to the system.