A Bullish Opportunity: A GIS Roadmap for Facilities Management
The University of South Florida (USF) Office of Administrative Services (OAS) GIS Program supports the university by leveraging GIS technologies to develop map applications to enhance facilities data management and products to assist in wayfinding and to provide campus information to the university community. The program involves moving from an AutoCAD-centric management solution into a GIS database driven platform to better share and manage facilities and campus information related to the university’s infrastructure and building portfolio.
My name is Daniel Gessman, and I am the GIS Program Manager for Facilities Information Services (FIS) at USF. In this blog post I will be telling the story of how the USF GIS Program went from a single campus safety and utilities focused entity to a program supporting multiple functions such as Emergency Management, Campus Planning, Utilities, and Campus Wayfinding across four campuses to support university’s goals and initiatives.
Background
Starting in 2018, USF Facilities Management (FM) embarked on an initiative to build a multiplatform (desktop and mobile) information management solution that would provide easy access to the myriad of information needed to maintain and operate facilities and utility assets across the university portfolio. At that time, the GIS Program lived within the Department of Emergency Management (DEM) under FM. This provided a unique opportunity as it prioritized a GIS buildout that focused primarily on campus safety.
The GIS Program buildout was a phased approach with goals to improve management for capital renewal, major/minor projects, maintenance operations, and services across USF’s Tampa campus. This initiative kicked off by procuring GIS and civil engineering services to assist with the buildout. Phase 1 included conversion of all utilities from CAD to GIS, campus LiDAR acquisition of the Tampa campus, four new campus survey monuments, verifying and field data collection of the stormwater and sanitary sewer systems, and the initial planning of a future GIS Needs Assessment.
As these efforts moved forward, the program grew quickly and afforded the opportunity to hire a GIS Analyst to lead project management and the GIS program buildout going forward. As the program expanded two more phases of utility collections occurred, along with the implementation of ArcGIS Enterprise. The implementation of Enterprise gave us the opportunity to grow the GIS Program even further. With the successful completion of a GIS Needs Assessment, we were able to prioritize and implement projects according to the goals of the university, the Office of Administrative Services, and other organizations across all USF campuses.
Where We Are Today
As of January 2022, the GIS Program was moved out of DEM to a new department called Facilities Information Services (FIS). FIS oversees and manages university-wide facilities-related data and information and assists with data-driven planning and decision-making. This change provided the opportunity to move from a campus safety and utilities focused program to one supporting the whole university across all its campuses. The success of the GIS Program afforded the opportunity to double the size of the GIS staffing with the hiring of a GIS Data Curator.
The program has grown from just providing an internal facilities resource to one providing university-wide wayfinding and campus awareness. Through a second deployment of Enterprise and development of a USF Maps Portal, FIS now provides campus information for all campuses supporting the entire university community through a central and consistent interface.
USF Interactive Campus Map
University Partnerships
One of the major drivers in the success of the GIS Program has been the partnerships made throughout the university and its various stakeholders. Through university collaborations and partnerships, the GIS Program has made huge strides from where it started six years ago. Partnering with the USF Library for full access to the Esri Education Site License and USF Information Technology (IT) for on-premises and cloud servers the program has the needed support to allow the FIS department to build a platform that can truly grow alongside the university.
GIS Needs Assessment
To better support the university and its consolidation of multiple campuses with the One USF initiative, a GIS Needs Assessment was conducted. The focus of this assessment was to identify, evaluate, and support key areas within the university that have needs for GIS map products and location-based data. This effort brought together 100+ university stakeholders across the entire university and its campuses. For over two hours the discussion focused on the impact of GIS, the current state of the GIS program, and what were the priorities moving forward. The result of this assessment was the creation of 28 various GIS projects that included Campus Wayfinding, Interior Building Asset Management, location and Awareness of Campus Amenities, Campus Master Planning, and additional GIS utility infrastructure collections, and more.
Utilities
Since the beginning of the GIS program, the focus has primarily been USF’s main campus in Tampa. With the Needs Assessment and department reorganization the program is now focused on the bigger push to bring all the USF campuses to comparable status and development of all apps and utilities infrastructure data in our Maps Portal.
For the Tampa campus, the GIS program has completed five phases (Storm, Sanitary, Potable, Primary Electric, Mechanical, Irrigation, and Fiber/Communication) of GIS utility GPS collections and is currently working on their sixth with electrical lighting. By the end of this collection, USF Tampa will have over 8,500 assets and more than 180 miles of linework mapped.
The utilities for the St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee campuses are mostly maintained by the City and County entities where they are located. By working with these partners and utility providers we are able to incorporate vital utility data in our Maps Portal for these campuses.
Campus Safety
At USF, the GIS staff within facilities management has always played a role in campus safety by providing campus awareness and data to our university partners and stakeholders. Working closely with DEM and the USF Police Department (USFPD), GIS plays a critical role in the university Emergency Operations Center and providing campus data in support of the University Police’s CAD dispatch system.
The USF GIS Program has grown under USF’s leadership from being focused solely on facilities to one that is focused on meeting the One USF goals and initiatives. This program has made leaps and bounds due to the support from within facilities and those stakeholders that truly see the benefit going forward. A special thanks goes out to Jen Fleischman (AVP, Administration & Operations), Hari Patel (Director, FIS), Jim Neighbours (Asst. Dir., FIS), and Ashley Snyder (GIS Data Curator) for their support in this program.
USF Maps Portal: https://maps.usf.edu/portal/home/
If you have any questions about scaling GIS across your campus, reach out to me at DGessman@usf.edu or connect with me on Linkedin.