Latest Contributions by TomDeWitte

By Tom Coolidge and Tom DeWitte Tracking and Traceability is now a well-established practice in the natural gas distribution industry supported by ArcGIS ® .   ArcGIS mobile app advances over the last three years have helped adoption of Tracking and Traceability activity grow. Collector for ArcGIS has evolved to now include the ability to use a mobile device’s camera to read the ASTM F2897 barcode. Collector also now includes the capability to run arcade scripts in the pop-up window while the device is disconnected from the network.  Not to be overlooked, Esri also released a new enterprise geodatabase capability called attribute rules.   Those three new capabilities have enabled many gas utilities, and increasingly gas pipe installation contractors; to use Collector to capture the location, barcode, and other information about the newly-installed pipe and its related components. These new capabilities and lessons learned from the many organizations actively using Collector for the digital as-builting portion of the Tracking and Traceability workflow have resulted in a more efficient and streamlined process for performing these tasks.   The purpose of this blog is to give an overview of how the current version of Collector, when combined with an ArcGIS 10.7 or higher enterprise geodatabase, can result in a simpler and more efficient Tracking and Traceability workflow. A second blog article will follow with a detailed explanation of the new attribute rule arcade scripts which completely automate the decoding of the ASTM F2897 barcode and the automatic population of the derived attributes. A quick review of Tracking and Traceability PHMSA proposed rules in May of 2015 to 49 CFR part 192 to address the need for operators to better ‘track’ the details and location of assets after their delivery from the manufacturer or supplier.  The rule also speaks to the need for better ‘traceability’ of assets; meaning the ability to locate assets by material, size, manufacturer, model, or other attribute.   The ASTM F2897 standard, developed collaboratively by the natural gas industry and its leading suppliers, specifies a 16-digit alphanumeric barcode format that embodies identification of a pipeline component’s manufacturer, lot number, production date, model, material, diameter, and wall thickness.  This barcode standard is now a common piece of the manufacturer provided information for plastic pipe and its plastic components.  Additional efforts spearheaded by the Gas Technology Institute are currently underway to define a more advanced barcode standard which can be applied to both steel and plastic pipe and their components.  This barcode “thing” is not going away.  Just the opposite, it is going to expand significantly in the years to come. Pattern Overview The ArcGIS deployment pattern for Tracking and Traceability is comprised of four steps, as illustrated here:     Step 1: Digital as-builting The recent improvements to Collector have made this process easier than it was just a few years ago.  The first enhancement was the revamping of the interface to simplify data entry. The second enhancement was to increase the certification of GPS vendors and their devices. Here is a link to the list of GPS receivers which can be used with Collector: https://doc.arcgis.com/en/collector/ipad/help/high-accuracy-prep.htm The third enhancement is the native ability of Collector to use the mobile device’s camera to capture the ASTM F2897 barcode. With these enhancements, field staff can go into the field and capture the as-built information of the new construction using a smart device running Collector. The smart device is Bluetooth-connected to a high precision GPS antenna.  The field staff use the high accuracy GPS antenna to capture the location of the newly installed assets. The collected location data is directly streamed into Collector as native ArcGIS features.  No translation or conversation is required.  The field staff then manually input into Collector a minimal amount of information, such as Installation Date, and installation method.  The field staff then uses the device’s camera to capture the barcode and automatically populate the BARCODE attribute of the GIS feature.  The BARCODE value contains information about the asset, such as size, material, manufacturer and manufacture date.  Once the BARCODE value is captured, the field staff no longer need to manually enter this information.   The recent enhancement to Collector supporting the ability to run arcade scripts in the pop-up window, provides the ability to immediately display the decoded data to the field staff even when the device is disconnected.   An additional capability of an Esri mobile app on a smart device or tablet is the ability to capture photos of the newly installed assets.  These photos are automatically associated to the GIS feature.   When the field staff have completed the collection of the newly installed assets, the GIS features are submitted to the staging geodatabase. Step 2: Contractor/crew assessable storage A fundamental challenge of Tracking and Traceability is how to correctly integrate high precision GPS geospatial data, with less accurate legacy geospatial data.  A key component to overcoming this challenge is the staging geodatabase.  A staging geodatabase can be either hosted in ArcGIS Online as hosted feature layers or stored on premise with a local ArcGIS Enterprise implementation. The key purpose of the staging geodatabase is to provide an easily accessible data repository for the field crews to submit their collected construction information too.  The staging geodatabase only holds the newly collected construction information.  The construction data sits in the staging geodatabase until a mapping professional using ArcGIS Desktop accesses and downloads it to the enterprise geodatabase.   With the new enterprise geodatabase capability of attribute rules, it is possible to have the captured barcode value automatically read and used to auto-populate the derived attributes manufacturer, lot number, production date, model, material, diameter, and wall thickness.  If the digital as-builting described in step 1 happens while the device is connected to the enterprise geodatabase, then Collector will automatically decode the barcode, auto-populate the derived attributes and display the decoded information immediately after the new/updated GIS feature is submitted by Collector. In the second blog, we will provide links to these arcade scripts and describe how to apply them to an enterprise geodatabase. Step 3: Append to enterprise geodatabase One of the time saving capabilities of ArcGIS Desktop is the ability to interact with data from both the staging geodatabase and the enterprise geodatabase at the same time.  This allows the mapping professional to easily select the staging geodatabase features and append them into the final enterprise geodatabase feature classes.    If the staging geodatabase layers are stored in ArcGIS Online, the previously described attribute rule arcade scripts can be applied to enterprise geodatabase layers.    NOTE: Attribute rules only work with ArcGIS Enterprise 10.7 or higher. Additionally, ArcGIS Pro is the only desktop tool to understand attribute rules.  If using ArcMap and a geometric network, it is important that the staging geodatabase layers be stored in an enterprise geodatabase and the attribute rules are applied to the staging geodatabase layers.   The standard arctoolbox geoprocessing append tool can be used to copy the newly collected GIS features from the staging geodatabase layers to the final enterprise geodatabase feature classes. Step 4: Mappers connect digital as-built with gas system With the new construction data now appended from the staging geodatabase into the enterprise geodatabase and the barcode value decoded, the mapping professional now needs to determine how to connect the high precision geospatial features with the less accurate geospatial features. The outcome of this process needs to honor two data requirements: Connecting the new features with the legacy features to create a single topologically connected gas pipe system. Preserving the high precision GPS collected geospatial coordinate data.   The recommended best practice for accomplishing this seemingly disparate set of requirements is for the enterprise geodatabase point features such as Meters, Excess Flow Valves, and Non-Controllable Fittings to have the following attributes added: SPATIALACCURACY, GPSX, GPSY, GPSZ.  Here is another example where attribute rules can streamline the population of these GPS fields.  If using ArcMap and the geometric network, then a configuration of Esri’s Attribute Assistant tool or ArcFM’s AutoUpdater capability can be used to automatically populate these fields.  This will preserve the original GPS location values, which can be used later to rubbersheet all features (legacy and GPS) to the more accurate GPS location preserved in the GPSX, GPSY, and GPSZ attributes.  With the GPS location preserved, the mapper can adjust the new construction features as required to connect to the legacy gas pipe system. Business value of using ArcGIS platform This approach to Tracking and Traceability provides an opportunity for the GIS department to once again show the greater gas organization that not only can the GIS Department provide a solution which addresses this new common industry practice, but it can do so in a manner that improves the operational efficiency of the gas organization.  This pattern improves the operational efficiency of the gas organization and their contractors as follows: Using Collector to collect construction data improves location accuracy and attribute quality by eliminating translation to paper and interpretation of paper based information. Bluetooth integration with high precision GPS antennas improves the speed at which data is collected. Capturing the barcode value reduces the amount of information the field staff manually collects. Material, diameter, manufacturer, manufacture model, manufacture data, manufacture lot number are all automatically populated by the decoding of the barcode. Digitally collected data is immediately available for GIS department to process into enterprise geodatabase. This eliminates the historical latency problem of the GIS department waiting for the inter office mail transmittal of the construction packet. The GIS department mapping professional task of updating the as-built representation of the gas pipe system is simplified. The mapper is no longer manually transposing paper based red-line drawings, but instead appending field collected geospatial features.  This improves the speed at which a mapper can complete the task of updating the as-built representation of the gas pipe system. Safety of field operations staff is improved by providing the new construction data in a timelier manner.   This deployment pattern not only provides the ability to improve the efficiency of the field data collection, it improves the productivity of the mapping professional, and provides new construction updates to locators and field operations staff in a timely manner.   Next blog In our next blog, we will dig into how to configure and deploy the arcade scripts for this solution to Tracking and Traceability. PLEASE NOTE: The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent Esri’s position, strategies, or opinions. ... View more

This is the official release of the 2019 Edition of the Utility and Pipeline Data Model (UPDM).    It is designed to support data management for the natural gas and hazardous liquids industries.  Supporting the diverse needs of these industries means supporting multiple implementation patterns.  Specifically a network topology with the Utility Network implementation pattern, and a linear referencing implementation pattern with the ArcGIS Pipeline Referencing solution.. NOTE: April 3,2020:  Updated the Asset Package to remove the folder "ap_workspace", and to remove some outdated schematic design templates.  With the ArcGIS Pro 2.5 release of Utility Network Package Tools, this is no longer needed, and is generated errors in some loading instances.   If you have questions, please post them to geonet, so everyone can see and share the information.   Thank you Tom DeWitte Esri Technical Lead – Natural Gas Industry ... View more

Gas Outage Management Part 3 of 3 The Gas Relight Process By Tom Coolidge and Tom DeWitte Natural gas distribution utilities have a proven track record of high reliability, even during extreme weather events.  But, in addition to smaller gas outages, exceptions resulting in large gas outages do infrequently occur.  These exceptions continue because of such things as planned pipe replacements, unplanned errors during routine maintenance activities, and transmission pipeline supply issues.  As examples, just in the last year or so: 2,800 customers in Dallas, TX experienced a large gas outage, 7,600 customers in Merrimack Valley, MA were out for some time, 2,200 customers in Dayton, OH experienced a large gas outage, and 4,900 customers in Ashland, WA experienced a large gas outage. A Better Way While these large gas outages are generally like those of earlier years, the expectation of how a gas relight event is best handled has been changing. I experienced this first hand in 2018.  During that gas outage event, I saw state and local elected officials arrive at the gas utility every morning for an in-person update.  Later in the day, they expected to be provided with a video update on the progress of gas service restoration.  Not only did the elected officials expect to be given an up-to-date summary of the overall outage event, they also had questions and expected answers to the status of individual customers. These same elected officials expected that their local gas utility be able to inform them on demand on the status of any customer. Further, they expected that any customer could contact their local gas utility and receive the same information. Most current gas relight processes in use in the gas industry are not capable of meeting these expectations.  They lack the real-time communication capability between multiple gas field staff and they lack the real-time communication capability to inform office staff, executives, and local communities seamlessly with this same information. ArcGIS software leverages today’s telecommunication system to enable the gas relight information to be collected and shared in near real-time. The key to a successful gas outage solution based on the ArcGIS software is in knowing how. In this blog, we will answer the question of how to enable gas field staff to collect and share an individual customer’s gas relight status in near real-time and how office executives can monitor and share the event status in near real-time. In the first blog of this series, we described how the ArcGIS desktop software can be used to perform a gas isolation trace which will accurately identify the customer meters impacted, the isolating devices or pinch locations and the extent of the outage.  In the second blog, we addressed how the ArcGIS platform can be leveraged to transmit this large amount of information from the office to the correctly assigned gas field staff. In this blog, the third of the series, we will walk through a hypothetical gas relight event and see how this information is streamed between office to field and field to field. Gas Relight Initiated When the gas relight list of impacted customer meters is uploaded and assigned to the gas field staff, the office staff and executives have immediate visibility into the event.  The office dashboard shown below shows an example of a gas relight dashboard at the initiation of the gas relight event.  At this point, all 15 impacted customer meters can be individually seen on the map, and their status is communicated by symbol color (red = out, orange = off, green = relit, and purple = no entry). In the field, the gas field staff can see the same near real-time information on their mobile devices (smart phone, tablet, laptop). This is the first view of the outage event provides a view of the entire event.  Every gas field technician can see the status of every impacted customer meter impacted. The second view is a presentation of those impacted customer meters assigned to the field technician. Together, these two views provide gas field technicians with a complete understanding of the gas relight event. Gas Relight Meter Turn-off As the gas field staff begins the process of turning off the individual impacted customer meters, everyone in the field and the office will see the meter status change. Having the status of a meter seamlessly communicated to everyone in the field and the office allows for improvements to the gas relight process itself. Gas field technicians no longer need to stop working the outage to deliver their documentation to a gas operations supervisor.  If a gas field technician finishes his or her assigned meters, he or she can see the real-time status of the other gas field technicians.  This means that a technician who has just completed the left side of the street, can simply walk across the street to start working those meters which have not yet been done by the technician working on the right side of the street. Gas Relight Meter Turn-On The turn-on process is a multi-step process that includes turning the valve at the meter to open the customer to the flow of natural gas.  It also includes going into the customer building to relight the gas appliances.  If the customer is not available to provide access to the appliances within the building, the customer is marked as “no access”. If all turn-on tasks can be completed, then the customer’s meter status is changed to “relit”. Remember the office is seeing the status change as soon as the field technician updates the meter and submits the record change. Gas executives and customer representatives can see the status of a meter within seconds, as quickly as the telecommunication system makes possible.  This allows customer service representatives to confidently inform customers when they call asking for information.  It also allows gas executives to easily communicate to an elected official the status of the overall event and any individual meter. Conclusion Today’s ArcGIS presents gas utilities with the opportunity to greatly improve on how they execute the gas outage restoration process.  Modern gas service restoration at its best is an enterprise-wide activity with workers in the field and office working together collaboratively in real-time on the same data. This blog, and the two that preceded it, together described how the core capabilities of the ArcGIS platform enable a gas utility to implement a modern gas service restoration process.  This process is accurate, efficient, and timely.  It is a process that will provide customer service representatives, gas operations supervisors, and gas management with real-time clarity on the progress of each customer through the gas service restoration process. ... View more

Communicating identified customers to Field Gas Operations By Tom Coolidge and Tom DeWitte There’s no authoritative record of the date of the first sizable gas outage in the United States, but a candidate for that distinction is June 14, 1837.  If the Gas Light Company of Baltimore had a control room then, the first alarm likely would have sounded shortly after 9 p.m. The Baltimore Sun reports it was around then that a second powerful thunderstorm dumped an enormous amount of rain in a short period, leaving the Jones’ Falls stream “incapable of retaining its boundaries.”  The resulting flooding caused loss of life, loss of houses, and vast destruction of other property– including partial inundation of the Gas House sufficient to prevent the manufacture of gas for days.  Restoring service was a formidable challenge. When this first outage occurred how do you think the staff of the Gas Light Company of Baltimore determined which customers were impacted by the outage. Did they simply test each gas lamp to see it lit or not?  Once they figured out the extent of the outage in the field, how was that information shared back to the office?  Most likely someone got on horseback or climbed into a horse-drawn buggy and rode the information from the field to the office. If the office had additional feedback for the field on how to isolate the outage and restore service, that information would have also been delivered back to the location of the outage on horseback.  How much longer was the duration of the outage extended while the gas utility staff waited for the information to be delivered? Innovation and communication The speed of communication has always been a limitation on the speed with which gas outages can be resolved. For over 100 years from the creation of that first pipe system in Baltimore, the speed of information was limited to the speed a person could be transported from one place to another.  Innovation in the second half of the 19 th century enabled small amounts of information to be transmitted between staff in the office and the field by telegraph and the telephone. Further enhancements in the early 21 st century have enabled large amounts of information to be transmitted between the office and the field staff. These technologies broke the limitation of the speed of information being constrained by the speed of humans. A Better Way Today’s telecommunication system provides the capability to communicate large amounts of information, such as a list of impacted customer meters, between the office and the field in near real time.  The ArcGIS software leverages today’s telecommunication system to transmit that list of impacted customer meters. The key to a successful gas outage solution based on ArcGIS is in knowing how. In this blog, we will answer the question of how to get the list of impacted customer meters from the office, and to the assigned field staff. In the first blog of this series, we described how the ArcGIS desktop software can be used to perform a gas isolation trace which will identify the customer meters impacted, the isolating devices or pinch locations and the extent of the outage.  In this blog, we will address the next major step which is to get this large amount of information from the office to the correctly assigned gas field staff. Prepping Data for the Field The first step in accomplishing this is to use a geoprocessing model to upload the selected data and append it to existing feature layers. These feature layers can be hosted in ArcGIS Online, or they can be hosted on an ArcGIS Enterprise Portal. In addition to appending the customer meters impacted, the isolating devices, pinch locations, and the extent area, a geoprocessing model provides the opportunity to prepare the data for field use.  Here is a list of commonly added attributes and their purpose: TRACEID to customer meters point features, pinch location point features, isolating valves point features, and extent area polygons. This will allow all data associated with the outage event to have a common ID. RELIGHTSTATUS to the customer meters point features. This will allow gas field staff to track each meter/customer point feature through their gas light cycle (unassigned, assigned, out, off, relit, no entry,). Default value is “unassigned”. TIMEOUT to the customer meters point features. This will allow gas field staff to document the date and time when the meter lost service. TIMEOFF to the customer meters point features. This will allow gas field staff to document the date and time when the meter was turned off. TIMERELIT to the customer meters point features. This will allow gas field staff to document the date and time when the meter was turned back on. NUMBEROFPASSES to the customer meters point features. This will allow gas field staff to document the number of attempts to gain access to the premise to relight the gas appliances. OUTAGETYPE to the outage event area polygon features. This will allow office staff to identify the type of event which caused the gas outage.   The geoprocessing model when run will take impacted customer meters and upload them to the feature layers.  A minute or two after the model has finished running, the data is available for gas operations staff. No more waiting for the horse-drawn buggy to arrive with the information. Assigning Impacted Meters/Customers The last step is to assign the impacted customer meters to individual gas operations field staff.  To perform this step, we will use Workforce for ArcGIS. Workforce is comprised of two applications; a dispatcher web application and a smart device mobile application.  The Worforce web application provides the ability to view the newly uploaded list of impacted customer meters.  Because the individual records can be viewed on a map, it is very easy to use geography to assign them to field staff.  For example, in the screen shot below the customer meters on the west side of the street can easily be selected and assigned to a single gas field technician.  This will improve the efficiency of the gas relight process by clustering the assigned meters. When the Workforce Dispatcher web application assigns impacted customer meters, the field staff are immediately notified.  The mobile app will show the gas field technicians their assigned customer meters.  No more waiting for information. In the third and final blog of this blog series, the issue of working the gas relight process will be addressed. Conclusion ArcGIS today is deployed worldwide at many gas organizations, providing the ability to replace and improve upon non-spatial legacy processes.  Identifying impacted customers, whether they are connected by steel pipe or pinchable plastic pipe, can be accomplished in just a few minutes.  Using ArcGIS tools enables information to be prepared, transmitted, assigned, and viewed by field staff in a matter of minutes. No more waiting for the horse-drawn carriage, telegraph message, or telephone message to arrive with the information.   PLEASE NOTE: The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent Esri’s position, strategies, or opinions. ... View more