The Geospatial Information System (GIS) is one of the key applications to successfully managing your infrastructure and overall network. Most of these systems do exactly what they were designed to do: document the physical layout of the plant. However, a great opportunity is being missed if GIS is not used as a source of data for other purposes within your organization. To make maximum use of GIS data, it should be integrated with other enterprise systems.

More and more companies are recognizing the need for integrating data from other enterprise systems with the GIS. Once integrated, these systems become Complementary Information Systems (CIS).

While a GIS contains many types of equipment and lots of data, this article focuses on utility poles and how GIS can increase your insight into exactly what is going on up there, who has done what to it, and how any and all changes impact your bottom line.

A Tall Order for I&M
The Installation and Maintenance (I&M) group in any communication or utility company is responsible for routine installations (new drops), repair, and prevention of common problems due to normal wear and tear. This group typically has a Work Force Management system to route technicians and capture individual work assignments through completion. Technicians usually carry a handheld data terminal that interacts with the Work Force system.

GIS can provide the specific location of assets (GPS coordinates) and allows technicians to efficiently travel to work sites. For example, imagine a tech’s assignment was to “correct the faulty ground wire on the pole at N42° 6.8643’ and W88° 2.9512’ 212 Main Street” versus being sent to “correct the faulty ground wire on the third pole west of the intersection of Main and Elm.”

The GPS coordinates combined with a street address leave little room for confusion and makes better use of the technicians time. Conversely, when technicians find new problems in the field, they need a way to capture the issue, have it routed to the correct people for remediation and have any significant plant changes fed back to the GIS.

A CIS would effectively manage this communication. Since many companies do not have effective pole numbering programs, it is often difficult to identify the problem pole. By interfacing the GIS to the I&M system, it is possible to automate much of the communications.

Example: One large telecom company added a pole inspection module to its field terminal. The module now communicates through the CIS to the OSP Engineering group. The terminal identifies the pole (by location) and allows the technician to identify the problem. This information is then sent to the responsible engineer who can then take the necessary corrective action.

Finally, an I&M group would benefit from having complete asset histories -- whether the asset was inspected and found satisfactorily, preventive treatment was performed, or remediation or replacement occurred. These types of details would allow more efficient plant maintenance and better decision-making regarding asset disposition. This type of historical data is not well-suited to be managed by a GIS. However, a CIS could manage it effectively.

Tracking Assets: Trickier Than It Seems
The Asset Accounting group fits between Engineering/Operations and Finance and is responsible for maintaining property records of plant assets. These records include the type of asset (pole, etc.), vintage (year asset was placed in service), a depreciation category, and cost. Summarized investment information is derived from these records to feed the company’s general ledger.

Asset Accounting makes changes to the property records each time an asset is purchased, moves to a new taxing location, or is retired. The problem is that in many cases (think: major wind storm), gathering accounting information is the lowest priority.

Having up-to-date, accurate information from the Engineering and Operations groups (who control the disposition of assets) is critical to maintaining property records. Access to asset changes occurring in the GIS would allow Accounting to check and balance with financial information received from Purchasing, etc. A CIS could automatically combine GIS asset changes with other financial-related data to pass to the Asset Accounting group.

Sharing Others Without Giving It Away
For poles, the aspect of Joint Use (where one company rents space on another company’s pole) is an area where GIS data and other complementary data could be combined to produce significant efficiencies.

Joint Use Permitting
The process allowing other companies to attach to a pole owned by another company would benefit greatly from a CIS. The GIS could supply pole locations and attributes (class/height) along with type and attachment owner. The CIS would utilize this data to enforce an automated communication process allowing other companies to obtain permits to attach. Data such as contract terms and pricing would be utilized with GIS data to complete the process. No confusion over which poles are specified, who is the owner, pricing, or even who is waiting on whom to respond. Attaching entity and attachment type would be passed back to the GIS when the attachment was physically placed and confirmed.

Joint Use Invoicing and Payables
Communication and Utility companies typically are both pole owners and pole renters. For owned poles, the company needs to accurately invoice tenants for the space they rent on the poles. Conversely, as a pole tenant, the company needs to verify rental charges from pole owners. A CIS enabled by GIS asset and plant configuration data can utilize other data including contract numbers, terms and pricing to generate accurate invoices to pole tenants and verify requests for payment from pole owners. The CIS would interface to Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable systems to hand off payment requests and invoices.

A Loaded Issue: Engineering and Inspections
While engineers may be the primary users of a GIS, the GIS may not perform all the functions engineers actually need. For example, consider a Joint Use permitting request: one function an engineer may need to perform as part of the permit approval is a wind loading analysis of the pole with existing and proposed attachments. This calculation must be performed, the results stored away, and the final determination returned to the permitting process. The GIS would supply the inputs to the calculations for the existing attachments and spans, while the permitting process would supply the details on the proposed ones. Complementary Information Systems would supply additional data, perform the analysis and store the results.

Another example of engineering activities that are enabled by GIS but would occur outside of the GIS is make-ready work. Again, the GIS supplies existing pole and attachment information the engineer would combine with the proposed attachment information from a CIS and determine whether additional work (such as moving cables to create sufficient clearance) is required before the proposed attachment can be made. A CIS would manage the communication and tracking of payment for make-ready work and attachments, updating the GIS as appropriate.

Several types of inspections may occur at a pole: Joint Use audits (to assure accurate billing between companies), rot testing (sound and prod, excavation, or Resistograph® to check the pole's structural integrity), visual safety inspections (to find obvious hazards and code violations), and ad-hoc capture of maintenance issues during routine work on nearby poles.

Each type of inspection would benefit from being enabled with GIS data and by the various internal groups sharing their results. While the GIS would always maintain the current state of the poles and other plant, a CIS would maintain historical inspection data regardless of source or inspection type and manage any remedial action required to completion.

Real World Example
When you look at the other enterprise groups who can utilize GIS data, you must recognize that to accomplish their goals GIS data needs to be combined with other complementary data…and that this data needs to be maintained and managed with the same level of diligence as GIS data! This implies a need for Complementary Information System. Figure 1 shows a real-life example of what a CIS would look like for poles.

Figure 1. A real-life example of what a Complementary Information System would look like for poles.

A GIS is vital to effectively manage a telecom network. The GIS provides a current picture of the plant's configuration. When this data is shared across the enterprise, it enables Complementary Information Systems to combine GIS data with other useful data such as contracts and pricing, inspection histories, engineering analyses, maintenance activities, and asset accounting.

This provides many groups with accurate information as they perform their duties, which in turn helps feedback updates to the GIS and creates a cycle of improvement among these systems. The more we share GIS data, the more we turn that data into knowledge.

And as we know, knowledge is power.

 About the Author
John Sciarabba has been Executive Vice-President at Alden Systems for 14 years where he focuses on corporate development. He has also worked for over a decade with firms including Bellcore and Eastman Kodak on the transition of emerging technology into new revenue producing services. At Kodak, Mr. Sciarabba was a key project manager on the successful construction of a new worldwide film production facility. For more information, email info@aldensys.com or visit www.aldensys.com.

About the Company
Alden Systems is the Developer of the JRM™ suite, an end-to-end Joint Use Pole Management solutions. Alden also performs Joint Use utility pole audits and inspections. For more information, visit www.aldensys.com.

What’s your take on this subject? Leave a comment and get the conversation going.