1. Innovative Uses of GIS in the Pipeline and Gas Industries
ESRI UC 2012
Innovative Uses of GIS in the Pipeline and Gas Industries
Central Hudson Gas & Electric’s
Field Sketching and Inspection Solution
Kevin Burton – CHGE
Jeff Puuri – GL Noble Denton

2. Central Hudson Gas & Electric
Mid-Hudson region New York
HQ Poughkeepsie
Gas System – Transmission and Distribution
170 miles Transmission
1175 miles Distribution
5 Districts
75 thousand customers
Mid-Hudson Bridge – Poughkeepsie, NY

3. Existing System Mainframe ArcGIS – SDE, Uptime CIS
FOS – Field Operating System
Inspections
Field Tablets/PDAs
Inspections
Raster Sketching
Paper forms
Distribution, Transmission, Landbase
Integrity analysis and compliance
Off-the-shelf data models
APDM
ArcGIS Gas Distribution DM
CHGE - SLIDE
Central Hudson’s legacy system in an in-house mainframe based inspection and work management system called FOS or Field Operating System, developed during the early 1990s.
Mainframe CIS and Inspection Management System:
Custom Developed
Difficult to Maintain
Not very flexible
Becoming Outdated – the pen computer operating system is no longer supported and cannot be replaced upon failure
Field Tablets:
Monochrome
Raster Sketching Output
Unable to update previously created sketches
Asset data for Transmission and Distribution has been fully captured in GIS
Necessary for integrity analysis and compliance
SDE geodatabase
Off the shelf data models and integrity software
The two systems do not communicate to each other, would require more custom programming to integrate
Need to integrate to access inspections and related documentation directly from GIS features
But desire to use Off-the-shelf tools as much as possible to achieve integration

4. Project Objectives
Replace current field mapping, sketching, and inspection collection system
Paper, Raster, Mainframe
Provide a light-weight map viewing software solution to support both field and office users
Leverage GIS Investment, Electronic Maps to Field
Electronic document retrieval from GIS features
Hyperlink to Manuals, Sketches, Reference Maps
Replace Compliance Monitoring Software
Product-based – operate on Laptop/Toughbook or PDA
Capture Editable, Re-useable Field Sketches during Inspection Activities
Integrate w/Inspection Software for Point-in-time snapshot

5. Target Solution Viewer / Sketching SDE, Uptime
Distribution, Transmission, Landbase
Integrity analysis and compliance
Mainframe – CIS Related Repairs
Off-the-shelf inspection system
Viewer / Sketching
Replica/Document Servers
Synchronization
Field Tablets/PDAs or Back Office
Map-based asset access
Inspections
Vector Sketching

6. Viewing Software - ArcEngine
MXD Layer Properties
Map Navigation / Search / Hyperlink

7. Viewing Software - Hyperlinks
Hyperlink Tool
Polygon Features
Hyperlink Attribute
Resulting PDF

8. Sketching Tools Scale Specific Custom Palette Per Sketch
Geo-referenced

9. Sketching with Inspection Collection

10. Back Office - Supervisor Approval

11. Back Office GIS Update - ArcMap / ArcEditor Extension

12. Upon Back Office Approval – Sketches Are Generated

13. Replication and Synchronization
Sketch / Resource Upd
One Way Replication
Sketch / Replica / Resource Updates
LAN
WAN
GDB / MXD Editing
Attribute Importer (Sketch Creation)
Resource Cfg
Field Work
Inspections (FM)
Sketch Editing
South Road
District Office x 5

14. Ability to Edit Existing Sketch – In Field
Retrieve Existing sketch, use for:
Further Updates
Basis for new sketch
Hyperlink attributes after sync:

15. PDA Support – ArcPAD Solution

16. Conclusion Satisfying project objectives
Integrate Field Mapping & Inspections with GIS
Implement Vector Sketching
ESRI technology
ArcEngine
Geodatabase Replication + Synchronization
Hyperlinking
ArcMap/ArcEditor editing extension
ArcPad
Essentials Inspection software