Water Utilities Fittings Feature

[deleted-user-sxViYNIAAUFF]

This question is aimed more towards anybody that has experience maintaining a water system.  In the water utilities sample database the wFittings feature class does not store fitting type or size.  Why is this?  Are the type and size of a buried fitting not that important for system maintenance?  Do you save that much in data management not dealing with storing fitting type or size?  I guess you can assume size based on the size of line the fitting is connected to.

[HowardCrothers]

In our experience we've heard from many customers that the business value of creating and maintaining detailed information about fittings wasn't worth the effort and wasn't frequently needed.  Like you said, you can often infer information about a fitting from the material, diameter and install date of water mains.  Some customers keep detailed information about fittings in their CMMS or workorder systems or go back to as-builts for this information if it's needed.

As editing gets faster and easier in ArcGIS and more utilities focus on asset management, I'm curious if utilities will decided to store detailed information about their fittings.

Hopefully some water utilities will share their views on fittings here.

[TimHayes]

We have created a GIS for our Wastewater Treatment Plant. We have also integrated it with Infor EAM Software. We have not put fittings into our Geodatabase yet, what do have are Pipes, Isolation Valves, ARVs, BOs, and Manholes. Eventually, likely later this year, using ArcGIS 10 Schematics, we will include Fittings size and other attributes. Our Engineers, Operators, and Maintenance staff seem to agree that Fittings is important especially for a Schematic.

In our experience we've heard from many customers that the business value of creating and maintaining detailed information about fittings wasn't worth the effort and wasn't frequently needed.  Like you said, you can often infer information about a fitting from the material, diameter and install date of water mains.  Some customers keep detailed information about fittings in their CMMS or workorder systems or go back to as-builts for this information if it's needed.

As editing gets faster and easier in ArcGIS and more utilities focus on asset management, I'm curious if utilities will decided to store detailed information about their fittings.

Hopefully some water utilities will share their views on fittings here.

[JayCummins]

We've had fittings (incl. a type attribute) for the better part of a decade and it's generally our operations staff that wants the information available. I don't know if the featureclass is "actually" used frequently--I come across a lot of MXDs where the fittings layer is turned off.  And sometimes the fittings layer is configured to only render the reducers (either by def. query or by the unique value renderer) and the rest is either inferred or ignored.  But there are no plans here to drop the water fittings.

In our experience we've heard from many customers that the business value of creating and maintaining detailed information about fittings wasn't worth the effort and wasn't frequently needed.  Like you said, you can often infer information about a fitting from the material, diameter and install date of water mains.  Some customers keep detailed information about fittings in their CMMS or workorder systems or go back to as-builts for this information if it's needed.

As editing gets faster and easier in ArcGIS and more utilities focus on asset management, I'm curious if utilities will decided to store detailed information about their fittings.

Hopefully some water utilities will share their views on fittings here.

[JoshuaDamron]

We desire to map fittings as the are very informative for decision making both in the field and for engineering design.  It's great to know if tees and crosses are sized the same in every direction and where clamps, reducers, etc. are located. 

We began mapping fittings, however, we ran into issues with symbolizing them clearly.  For instance ideally a reducer would be a standardized symbol with one side larger (the larger size main) and the other smaller (smaller main) and being oriented along the main in the correct direction;  or to symbolize a cross as a cross and have it rotated in line with the connecting mains.

The task of maintining a rotation field on all of the fitting features became too much so we have put our efforts elewhere for the time being.

[StevenRehbaum]

We carry fittings for all water types with many specific attributes including rotation and 19 different subtypes.  We include many datasets in a Utilities viewer so having more data collected is far easier than less.  Symbology is always an issue as we are in the process of standardizing ours as well.  No easy answer for symbology other than trial and error.

[JoshuaDamron]

We carry fittings for all water types with many specific attributes including rotation and 19 different subtypes. .

I would be interested to see how you are symbolizing the many different fittings.  Are you using out of the box ESRI symbology for your fittings or did you make your own custom symbols? 

If you (or anybody else) would post a screen shot of your table of contents showing feature types and symbology I would appreciate it.

[StevenRehbaum]

I would be interested to see how you are symbolizing the many different fittings.  Are you using out of the box ESRI symbology for your fittings or did you make your own custom symbols? 

If you (or anybody else) would post a screen shot of your table of contents showing feature types and symbology I would appreciate it.

This is a work in progress.  I am in the process of reformatting our entire database including symbology.  As of now, there are some standards in place, but they are being changed.  The final symbology will be a mix of ESRI and custom symbols.  That's all I have for now.  Sorry.

[NathanielDavis]

When I worked for Norfolk Department of Utilities, we tracked a large number of fittings (Bends, Reducers, Tees, Tapping Sleeves, etc) for water and wastewater.  Each fitting tracked the size(s), stationing (if available), source data, etc.  The symbology was custom (basically amounting to placing a letter in a circle) so we did not need to make rotations.  We also used extensive feature-linked annotation to call out some of the items for paper maps.  It made the process of digitizing more time consuming, but the field crews accepted the new symbols.

I now work at the Charleston Sanitary Board.  We are just starting our digitizing process, but I plan on capturing fittings with fewer attributes.  I am going to use a similar symbology set here.

The big thing to keep in mind is to make sure everyone is happy with the level of detail digitized.

[deleted-user-sxViYNIAAUFF]

Here is a sample of our fittings symbology.  It just seems to complex.  It seems to me that for most users looking at a map a buried fitting is just not that important.  You do need to know if it is a tee or what angle of bend.