Design and Operations and Management of GIS Workflows for Multi-utilities

Benoit Fredericque

Senior Product Line Manager – Geospatial Desktop & Mobile

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• Climate change and environmental concerns

• Growth in renewable generation and distributed resources

• Aging asset performance with increased expectations on reliability

• Increased pressure on operational efficiency and workforce productivity

• Increasing desire by consumers for a role in energy management and conservation

• New entrants and disruptive technologies

The Utilities Industry Is Changing

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Q: What are the three most pressing challenges for your Utility?

Business Challenges in Utilities

Source: www.utilitydive.com, the State of the Electric Utility, 2014

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Utility Infrastructure Assets

• They are large, complex systems…

– Not simply discrete equipment, schedules and resources

– Many involve one or more complex networks

• Transportation, Utilities

• Networks may need to be overlaid

– Service life spans of 50 to 100 years

– Updates and upgrades involve significant engineering and design

• Serve the public

– Both private and public enterprises

– Need to support public inquiry, reporting and response

– Concerned with “level-of- service” and public safety

– Continuous operation

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Advancing GIS for Utilities Infrastructure

• Going away with the divide between engineers and GIS specialists

• Geospatial technology made available seamlessly within information modelling applications

• Working with existing spatial data repositories

• Supporting standards – published and de facto

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“(…) To capture the mindshare of the Utilities community with software that inspires the design, build and operation of world-class utilities.”

Bentley Mission Statement for Utilities

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Bentley’s Solutions for Utilities

… a suite of

design, simulation, and

information management

software for

professionals to design, build, and operate

utilities transmission and

distribution

networks. Electric Distribution

District Energy

Substation

Pipeline

Electric Transmission

Gas Distribution

Wires and Cables

Wastewater Water

Communications

Pipes

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Implementing the Vision

Showcasing Bentley solutions in three disciplines:

• Desktop GIS for Utilities

• Point Cloud for Utilities

• Mobile GIS application for Utilities

GIS for Utilities

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• Integrate design and operation and maintenance in a single environment

• Evolves around workflow management for guided create and change processes

• Offer industry standard utility data models for quick product deployment

• Integrate accurate CAD-based layout and design with GIS analytical capabilities, and spatial database support

Bentley GIS for Utilities

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Job and Workflow Management

• Manages multiple workflows

– Support branching, tracking status and states, markup and approval

• Improves information access, collaboration, and security

• Reduces redundant data entry and manual errors

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Industry Data Models to Manage Utility Assets

• Framework for organizing and maintaining electric, gas, water and wastewater utility data

• More than 150 Objects

– Including attributes, relationships, behavior

• Off-the-shelf solution

– Can be customized, enhanced, localized

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Integrated CAD, GIS & Spatial Capabilities

• All of MicroStation and Bentley-Map built-in

• High-precision placement tools

• GIS analysis tools

– Query, Search & Locate

– Thematic mapping, buffering, overlay

– Map finishing and reporting

• Seamless Spatial data access

– Oracle and SQL Server

– Short and long transactions

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Smart Layout Editing

• Managed edits of network layouts

– Connected/Related assets are changed according to predefined rules

• Update as-built data and proposed infrastructures

– Maintain the layout intent as you edit

– Dynamic display of (proposed) changess

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Smart Layout Editing

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Outage Planner

• Advanced tracing tool to:

– Prevent outages caused by operation and maintenance

– Aid to manage unplanned outages

• Identifies and associates assets and customers to system impact areas

• Seamless workflow management integration

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Outage Planner

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• Gain control over data creation and editing process

• Analytical capabilities during the design process

• Editing capabilities during operation and maintenance

• Improving information mobility

To better face these challenges Bentley announces OpenUtilities

GIS for Utilities – Challenges

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What is OpenUtilities?

• Standalone Multi-utility GIS

– Electric, Gas, Water, Wastewater, District Energy

• Open

– SQL Server Spatial

– Oracle Spatial

– and more

• Offered for Three User Levels

– OpenUtilities PowerView

– OpenUtilities Map

– OpenUtilities Designer

• Includes WaterCAD and SewerCAD Modeling for Design

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How will OpenUtilities be Introduced?

Point Cloud for Utilities

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Aerial LIDAR to Transmission line models

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• Point Cloud = a data type made of millions or billions of points.

• Data acquired from scanner mounted on different platforms: Aircraft, Mobile (boat, trucks, trolley..) & Static

• XYZ + Intensity, RGB if combined with Digital camera

What are Point Clouds?

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Mobile Mapping to Asset information

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Asset management :on-demand 3D measurement

Data captured by StreetMapper

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Survey 3D Assets from Point Clouds

• Great alternative for manually surveying sites

• Replaces traditional survey documents

• Reduces time on-site

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Build Intelligent 3D

Substation Models

from Point Cloud

Scans

Reuse and Repurpose

Existing Substations

Applying Point Clouds in Substation Engineering

… further enhancing the software-drive process to design, and

build power substations and manage as-built models and

documentation

Explore new

substation sites

Perform

comprehensive site

development

Engineer Physical

Layout

Design Protection &

Control

Design substation

structures and buildings

Analyze comprehensive

substation model

Manage design and

build

Manage as-built

information

Share substation model

with other systems

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Substation Point Cloud on Mobile

• Use of Point Clouds is not limited to the desktop alone

• Information mobility ensures Point Cloud data is also available on mobile devices

Information Mobility

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Information Mobility versus Mortality

Information Lifecycle

Information Mortality

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Mobile devices have worked their way into more and more phases of business workflows. Tablets and smartphones now offer a combination of computing power, graphics performance, and communications bandwidth that makes them capable of handling computing tasks heretofore relegated to desktop or even server computers. However, it would be a mistake to view the opportunity afforded by mobile devices as “portable desktop computers.” Mobile devices don’t replace desktop computers – in fact, neither is particularly well suited for the other’s role. Instead, their convenience factor (portability, GPS, cameras, radios, video, gyros, etc.) makes them uniquely suited to address one of the most costly and longest standing issue since the dawn of computer-aided-business: the disconnect between information systems and information consumers. That’s where information is missing or wrong, mistakes are made, dollars and time are wasted, and opportunity is lost. We now have the hardware, all we need is software.

Information Mobility in the field

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Accessing Utilities Information in the Field

• Field workers involved in inspections require up-to-date information on all infrastructure assets

• Workers are often disconnected from the corporate network or in locations where network connectivity is limited

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Mobility for Utilities Challenges

• Provide efficient data workflows for mobile applications

– Offer disconnected and connect access to data

• Open up two-way interaction with mobile applications

– Process redlining, forms input

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Bentley Map Mobile offers…

• Simple touch and gesture interface

• Fast access to geospatial data in the field

• Locate assets based on query or GPS location

• Disconnected mode for standalone operation

• Full query and review of geospatial data

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Bentley Map Mobile Data Generation

• Desktop, interactive generation

– Save data as i-model

– Bentley Map Mobile Publisher

• Enterprise Data Generation

– Scheduling, load balancing

– Transformation tools

– i-model Composition Server

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• Measure Tools

• Search Improvements

• Highlight similar features

• New user Interface:

– File Browser

– Pop out tools

– Virtual Mouse

– …

Coming this year!

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• The utilities industry is changing continuously, but infrastructure assets remain an important focal point

• Solutions for GIS for Utilities, Point Clouds and Information Mobility bring opportunities to Utilities to control infrastructure assets and adopt to change

• Bentley is committed to capture the mindshare of the Utilities community with software that inspires the design, build and operation of world-class utilities.

Mission Critical Geospatial Technology in Utilities