Gas and Pipeline Blog

The fact is, maintaining our utility infrastructure can be a dangerous job. Notifying a utility field worker that they are approaching a known danger is a geospatial problem. This makes it a problem that can be solved with a location aware mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet, and a mobile mapping application such as ArcGIS Field Maps.  

Field crews and first responders need both an immediate visual aid and an automated warning to inform them of these safety zones. A mobile application with an interactive map, such as ArcGIS Field Maps is ideal for this need. Recent enhancements to ArcGIS Field Maps now enable client side notifications based on that mobile device location awareness.  This is called geofencing.  With geofencing the same field technician can have their mobile device vibrate, make sounds and have a banner notification appear on the mobile device when they approach the safety zones.

Within pipe utility organizations, automating the documentation of steel pipe construction has been a challenge. Lookup tables can store information about steel pipes, valves, and fittings, that the organization knows prior to construction. With automation, these lookup tables are used to simplify the field worker experience by automatically populating what is already known about the steel asset.

Today’s mobile sensors, when combined with a nearby mobile device and the correct mobile GIS application on the mobile device, create a wonderful opportunity to transform tasks and workflows performed in the field. This transformation can overcome, if not eliminate, the inefficiency inherent in today’s incompatible workflows.

Simply having a barcode does not directly equate to productivity gains for the utility field worker. There needs to be a companion capability. This companion capability includes electronically capturing the barcode, and software to decode the barcode, then auto-populate the information directly to the asset record.

Utilities collect a lot of data. This means utility field staff are spending a lot of time filling out forms.  Many companies today are undertaking efforts to convert paper forms to digital forms.  The basic justification for this effort is to eliminate the duplicate data entry of having an office person read, interpret, and recreate in the corporate enterprise systems what is captured in the field. But what about the field staff themselves, where is their benefit of digital transformation?  This blog series is about how to improve the productivity of field staff - how to automate data entry, leverage mobile device sensors, utilize intelligent software, and truly reduce the amount of time field staff spend filling out forms.

Esri’s Utility and Pipeline Data Model (UPDM) 2021 is available now. This release includes enhancements to keep up with changes in industry practice, regulatory requirements, and previous implementation feedback.

The natural gas industry’s drive to a lower or net zero carbon footprint is focused on actions that generally can be organized in three groups: (1) reducing methane emissions from operations, (2) reducing methane emissions from customer consumption, and (3) embracing new sources and uses of alternative lower carbon fuels.

Risk to the organization is typically summarized as a cost, with the unit of measure being monetary ($). This cost is much more than simply the expense to the utility to have the construction group replace the identified deficient section of pipe.  When a pipe section fails, it impacts the people and facilities near the location of failure.

Talking to someone about Tracking and Traceability is typically a discussion centered on a checklist of functional capabilities. Although this is a very important discussion to have, too often the discussion ends when the checklist of desired functionality ends. What is missing is the discussion of how much productivity can the organization gain by replacing legacy processes with a digital process.