Gas Sessions

If you own, manage, operate, or maintain infrastructure related to gas utilities, you can’t afford to miss the innovative and ready-to-implement ideas presented at this event. Register now to check out these targeted sessions, and much, much more!

Tuesday, March 11, 8:30

Case Study: Migrating Fully Integrated CAD Design Tools to a GIS Design Tool
Track: Planning, Design, and Engineering
Corey Clinger, Telcordia Technologies, Inc

Learning Objectives:

• Get tips and techniques for large-scale data migration.
• Learn how to meet CAD user expectations with GIS tools.
• Use the power of GIS to simplify complex problems.

This presentation outlines a case study focusing on solving the complexities of migrating 6,000 telephony engineers from multiple CAD tools to a single integrated, GIS-based design tool. The migration involved the requirement to successfully marry a GIS-based telephony design tool with the features of years of user-focused CAD tool customization. The presentation highlights examples of capabilities marrying GIS benefits to CAD user expectations, systems integration, and migration of multiple CAD drawing types into an integrated GIS view.
Copresenter: Corey Clinger, Telcordia Technologies, Inc.

Tuesday, March 11, 9:30

Mobile Forms and GIS for Underground Damage Prevention
Track: Mobile Applications
Jennifer J. Nieland, Integrys Business Support, LLC

Learning Objectives:

• Learn to use what you have: “home grown” mobile forms and GIS for damage prevention.
• Go from paper to PC: change management while going mobile.
• Understand two steps: Going mobile changes a process, then improves it.

Imagine combining several tools in such a way they create a powerful new tool that can be applied to other processes, rendering them more efficient, effective, and less costly. This was the case at Wisconsin Public Service Corporation when locating tickets from state One Call systems, the mobile GIS viewer and electronic forms were combined and applied to Damage Prevention, or Locating. These “old” tools, used in a new way, transformed Locating from a paper process to an electronic process, improving data, saving hours and reducing costs.

Tuesday, March 11, 10:30

A Battle Plan for Disaster Management
Track: Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Response
Jeremy Sadler, Osmose Utilities Services, Inc.

Learning Objectives:

• Get an overview of emergency management principles.
• Learn application of emergency management principles to utility operations.
• See examples of successful strategies used by utilities in all phases of emergency management.

Knowing how to respond effectively to a hurricane, ice storm, or other disaster is important for every utility. This presentation will explore strategies for developing a “storm plan” that meets the four phases of disaster management identified by the Emergency Management Institute. One presenter has organized disaster response teams for major hurricanes including Katrina. The other presenter is a utility representative who has weathered major disasters and knows how to develop a successful disaster plan.

Leveraging GIS to Automate Field Inspections
Track: Mobile Applications
Jon Huddleston, NW Natural

Learning Objectives:

• Learn how to leverage GIS to automate field inspections.
• Learn the benefits of a map-based approach to automating field inspections.
• Understand today’s code compliance process at NW Natural.

There are tremendous efficiencies to be gained through successful field automation that result in decreased costs and liability and increased safety and customer service. This session will demonstrate how NW Natural leveraged their GIS and integrated several disparate legacy applications to automate the code compliance inspection process from the field. Attendees will learn how the process has improved; not only are the inspections performed quicker, but the data is more accurate and consistent—resulting in measurable ROI.
Copresenter: Jay Lasseter, MapFrame Corporation

Tuesday, March 11, 11:30

Modeling and Exchanging Critical Infrastructure Data
Track: Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Response
Paula Rojas, GeoConnections

Learning Objectives:

• Understand approaches to exchanging critical infrastructure data.
• Apply spatial data infrastructure to critical infrastructure identification.
• Provide decision-support and information requirements to emergency managers.

Locations of critical infrastructures are key pieces of information required to support emergency management. The Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure is being employed within the public safety sector as a standard way to exchange geographic data describing infrastructure. A data model has been developed to describe infrastructure data in a structural manner and facilitate access to infrastructure data. The approach and constraints of the Canadian public safety sector to improve the access to infrastructure data will be described, and solutions will be proposed.
Copresenters: Philip Dawe, and Paula Rojas, GeoConnections

Enterprise GIS—Powering the Utility of the Future
Track: New Technology and Market Directions
William J. Meehan, ESRI

Learning Objectives:

• Learn the latest in and future of GIS architecture as applied to future utility directions.
• Discover how GIS enables the smart grid.
• Understand how spatial Web services and mobile GIS impact utilities.

Increasing challenges from customers, employees, regulators, and investors require utilities to transform themselves. GIS is a key technology of the transformation. Utility of the future involves automated interaction with customers, self-healing smart grids, enhanced use of automated metering, optimized use of resources, predictive methods for maintenance and capital improvements, more security, and more integrated technology and processes. This session will examine the role that enterprise GIS plays in powering the utility of the future.

Tuesday, March 11, 2:30

Better O&M Facility Management Through Data Management and GPS Technologies
Track: Surveying
Todd Rothermel, Bentley Systems, Inc.

Learning Objectives:

• Data management of geospatial engineering documents.
• Understand the use of geospatial engineering documents for inspection, stakeout, and as-builts.
• Update data archives using GPS Hardware and Software technologies.

Working archival systems that contain both computer-aided drafting
(CAD) data and computer-aided engineering (CAE) will be discussed in the context of the daily workings of large operations and maintenance facilities. New advances in technology will be presented that create a vendor-neutral archive of CAD/CAE information that can be used in data inspection/stakeout mode, as well as in the data update mode. GPS and total station deployment using the extracted data will be reviewed.
Copresenters: Rob Mellis, Bentley Systems, Inc.

Tuesday, March 11, 4:30

Using IT Enterprise Infrastructure to Integrate a Permitting System with GIS
Track: Enterprise Architecture & System Integration
Toby Semroc, Seattle Public Utilities

Learning Objectives:

• Learn ways to spatially enable your non-GIS data to make it more visible to the business.
• See how a software development life cycle can be used in a GIS project.
• Understand the importance of having architecture in place that enables the sharing and dissemination of data.

This presentation will cover the story of the application development process, from requirements gathering to implementation and training, a GIS application the City of Seattle developed as a mapping interface for its Street Use permitting system. The presentation will highlight the importance of an enterprisewide IT architecture and how the implemented mapping system has facilitated the issuance and conditioning of Street Use permits in the city.

Wednesday, March 12, 9:00

Transforming the Emergency Operations Center with GIS
Track: Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Response
Thomas Counts, 3-GIS, LLC

Learning Objectives:

• Value of real-time incident reporting.
• Convergence of Mobile and GIS Technology.
• Realizing knowledge from the edge of the network.

Modern communication networks have enabled mobile GIS to move to the Emergency Response arena. By utilizing timely and accurate facility and incident information, the Emergency Operations Center cannot only create a Common Operational Picture in record time, the EOC can equally publish actionable response events in a graphically and spatially correct method.

Wednesday, March 12, 10:00

An Industry Standard for Operating Companies for Exchanging New Construction Data
Track: Data Acquisition & Maintenance
Robert Brook, PODS

Learning Objectives:

• Learn about data standards, their value, and how they can be applied.
• Learn about the New Construction Data Standard.
• See if this standard or a best practice could be deployed in your organization.

Data is one of the most critical assets an operating company owns and maintains. Establishing and preserving the integrity of an enterprise data store is becoming more difficult as organizations are forced to respond to ever expanding infrastructure and the related data. To simplify and streamline the process, PODS (Pipeline Open Data Standard) is developing a standard for exchanging new construction data between service companies and operators. This presentation will explain the evolving standard/best practices.

Regional Watershed Management System
Track: Public Sector
Durmus Cesur, San Antonio River Authority

Learning Objectives:

• Learn basics to use an ESRI GIS platform for integrated modeling management.
• Learn to implement workflows using enterprise GIS.
• Learn to use enterprise GIS to communicate/coordinate modeling efforts.

The presenter will describe the use of geographic information system (GIS) as a framework to manage water resources modeling information—as well as to facilitate business processes and workflows that rely on this information—through the integration of hydrologic, hydraulic, and environmental modeling systems, enterprise databases, and the Web portal technologies. The GIS-based data models and application extensions are used to integrate hydrologic, hydraulic, and environmental models of interest on the GIS platform.

Wednesday, March 12, 2:00

Using Geospatial Technology to Communicate with the Public When Disasters Strike
Track: Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Response
Joe Francica, Directions Magazine

Learning Objectives:

• Understand disaster mitigation and response for the public.
• Learn about available real-time geospatial information.
• Become aware of political changes with informing the public to disasters.

This presentation will provide a detailed, first-person account of the lack of communication currently being issued to the general public in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack. While money is being poured into communications with first responders, the general public is often left out. This presentation will show problems with how government entities communicate currently and what can be done to mitigate problems in the future using existing technology.