East Gippsland Water (EGW), Australia

Australian Water Authority uses geospatial technology to increase productivity and share information

water supply The Challenge:

The East Gippsland Water (EGW) asset register, which holds information about the authority’s pipeline assets, was intended for financial reporting and not readily available for staff use. Personnel could obtain copies from the Bairnsdale head office and at various depots, but updated plans were only available every three months, which meant that up-to-date data was hard to come by.

EGW realized that a geographic information system (GIS) would greatly enhance its ability to manage its sewer and water supply networks more efficiently. The GIS would have to be a sophisticated system that could keep track of various status levels of pipeline assets, manholes, and fittings. In addition, the GIS must make accurate, up-to-date information available to staff – including data accessibility and quality, information reporting, and ongoing data maintenance and quality control.

The Project Objectives:

Improve productivity in accessing required information about assets, asset performance, and overall system performance
Ensure accurate, secure, and consistent information is available to staff company wide – assisting in reliable operations and planning to minimize risks of incorrect decisions and actions

The Solution:

EGW turned to Intergraph to create a solution that would enable the Authority to manage its assets easily. In the project’s first phase, Intergraph and the Authority developed a database model to define the network relationships between features within the sewer and water pipeline system, establish data integrity rules, and control data editing. The GeoMedia Professional and GeoMedia PublicWorks rule-based data model created a management audit trail that tracks all edits, new features, and deleted features.

Phase II of the project created the EGW intranet site. Using GeoMedia WebMap and GeoMedia WebMap Publisher, EGW created a Web-based solution that provides the head office and selected depots with simple Web access to the new geospatial infrastructure management system. Users now can access sewer and water pipeline data, previously only available in hard copy, quickly and easily. When data is updated, it is available to all users instantly – in real time. Users can check the system’s screen view against the paper plan and link into the pipeline asset register, finance system, document management system, and customer billing system.

Currently, EGW is developing a GeoMedia Professional- and GeoMedia PublicWorks-based administrator solution that enables users to update both the new system’s database and the pipeline asset register database simultaneously – providing up-to-date, reliable, and matching data in both databases.

EGW will use the geospatial Web-based solution to:

Provide sewer and water plan information to customers, plumbers, developers, solicitors, consultants, and contractors through staff access to the intranet
Search for locations by street address or title plan information – users can then zoom into the relevant area
Query incident and customer complaints
Search, view, and print sewer and water plans
Link to documents, such as technical data

Thanks to its new complete geospatial solution, EGW is using Intergraph technology to identify, validate, and update its existing pipeline asset register – matching it with financial ledgers. This ensures that both locations contain exactly the same up-to-date information.

Future Plans:

The Authority plans to develop a depot and power user solution that can be used to map, analyze, and report key performance indicators, such as customer complaints, leaking water mains, analysis of possible relationships between incidents and pipe age, materials, etc., determining properties affected by closures or blockages, and much more.

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