A shift is taking place in the world of infrastructure construction. It’s a subtle change, but supported by stronger currents that are driving the industry forward. The shift could be described in a number of ways, but we like to think of it as the movement away from “digital as-built” (the collection of digital information about the construction of the project) to the idea of ”digital as-is ” – a reflection of more real-time construction data. This transition is supported by an increasing focus and reliance on GIS-supported location data that can be captured during construction and fed into a variety of systems. In this article, we will focus on the specific role that GIS data plays in supporting the maintenance of infrastructure assets.
A quick GIS update
GIS (Geographic Information System) is not a new technology, but a relatively new one for construction. The high-level definition, through the US Geological Survey group, is a computer system that analyzes and displays geographic reference information. Use cases for GIS can range from agricultural planning to weather forecasting. In construction, GIS is used to identify and locate built assets and associated elements to support collaboration, data sharing, spatial analysis, site selection, and, as we will discuss further detail, the management of infrastructure assets.
Understand the management of infrastructure assets
Infrastructure asset management involves the “systematic and coordinated activities and practices by which an organization optimally and sustainably manages its assets and asset systems, their associated performance, risks and costs over the their life cycles”.
Simply put, it’s a process that gathers information to ensure that the things we build last as long as possible in good working order. For example, it may include information about how a certain type of asphalt holds up over time or how different materials will respond to extreme weather conditions.
If you’ve seen any of the US infrastructure bulletins (currently rated C-. Sure, C’s get titles, they also have catastrophic failures), you know why good asset management practices are increasingly important in the conversations about the national infrastructure. But effective asset management is often limited by access to quality data, data silos and inaccurate asset inventories due to manual data entry. GIS can act as a panacea for these asset management problems.
The role of GIS in the management of infrastructure assets
For anyone interested in learning more about the role of GIS in infrastructure asset management, we recommend checking out this Esri white paper, which describes the role of GIS in extreme detail, and this white paper from Infotech on construction data visualization. We’ll summarize the high-level information for each of these resources in this article. According to infrastructure asset management practices dating back to the 1990s, there are seven steps to an effective asset management strategy:
- Complete an asset inventory.
- Complete a program inventory.
- Determine service levels.
- Define roles and responsibilities.
- Identify and calculate risk.
- Extrapolate a forecast.
- Adjust your budget accordingly.
While GIS-enabled construction data is essential throughout this asset management process, it’s easy to see the role it plays in completing an asset inventory. It also highlights the importance of interdepartmental collaboration, because this inventory creation process must begin in the construction and inspection phase.
Inspectors tasked with ensuring a project is progressing according to specifications can be equipped with devices that support GIS data capture, from LiDAR on their phones to GNSS rovers. Asset management may not be a top priority for an inspector or construction project manager, but accurate and precise data capture can be incorporated into your existing process without placing an additional burden on your shoulders. or add tasks to your day. This valuable data, the “digital as-is” data, can be shared with other departments responsible for asset management, operations, maintenance and forecasting.
How this data is organized depends on each organization’s definition of asset management, but here’s an example from Esri of how the terms translate between systems and philosophies:
|
Term of the asset |
GIS term |
example |
|
Heritage family |
Data set |
water |
|
Asset class |
Characteristics class |
w Hands |
|
Asset specification |
Attributes |
Material = “Cast Iron” |
As you can see, different assets can be mapped to broad data sets in a GIS database and then narrowed down to specific details. So if an organization wanted to identify where all the cast iron water pipes were in their district, they could simply select that attribute in a GIS data visualization platform and mark them for replacement. An aside: As someone who has personally dealt with issues associated with cast iron pipes, I would like someone to give my girlfriend’s landlord access to a GIS database for his rental properties.
Once this initial data is captured using GIS-enabled tools, there are several ways to leverage it for asset management:
- Predict maintenance costs by identifying items with GIS, as well as accurate travel costs
- Use data from the construction process, such as hazard identification, to help calculate risk and assess conditions
- Determine degradation times by leveraging building materials data
