Tag Archives: Government

GIS, Work Order Software, & Kate Gosselin

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Kate Gosselin

Kate Gosselin on ABC's Dancing With the Stars

Anyone who was able to stay awake through Kate’s completely uninspiring performance on Dancing with the Stars deserves some recognition.  You can watch it here, starting at 41:44.

http://abc.go.com/watch/dancing-with-the-stars/93512/258773/week-five

Of course my mind began to wander as I suffered through the dance.  Oddly enough, I began to draw several parallels between that particular performance and integrating GIS with work order software.

With Kate’s painfully boring performance in mind, here are a few quick tips for utilities and local governments looking to implement GIS-centric work order management software:

1. Select software that’s a good match for your company.

Unfortunately Tony Dovolani (Kate’s dancing partner) did not get to choose who he danced with.  Luckily, you do. Remember, you’re entering a long-term relationship with both the work order software and the vendor – so choose carefully!  Tony put it best when he said “Kate has no motivation and I have to push her each week, it gets exhausting.” Nobody wants to say that about the work order software they selected (or the vendor responsible for the implementation)!

2. Simple is best.

Let’s face it; Kate’s performance was painful for everyone – judges, spectators, and even Ms. Gosselin.  As simple as the dance routine seemed, it was evidently way too complicated for the mother of 8.  Remember, your GIS and work order software will be used by field staff and other workers who are not familiar with GIS.  You’re likely to face a steep learning curve if you overcomplicate things – so when it comes to GIS and work order software, make it easy!

3. Get the attention you deserve from your vendor.

Kate’s excuse for such a terrible performance was that her children were in town that week (yes, all 8 of them) and she had little time to rehearse.  Remember, if the vendor you select is too busy with their boat load of children (other customers), performance will suffer.  Make sure you’re the important customer.  Be the big fish in their pond – the customer that gets all of the attention because you are the most valuable client to that particular vendor.

In summary, there was nothing exciting about Kate’s performance – except that it ended.  Implementing new technology (especially neat tools like GIS and asset management software) should be exciting!  It will save time, save money, and make your job much easier if it’s done correctly.

GIS, Work Orders, and Asset Management

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First, a few thoughts on GIS in general.
In the United States, the words GIS and ESRI are often times used in the same sentence. Why? Because according to Wikipedia, ESRI products (particularly ArcGIS Desktop) have one-third of the global market share, and are used by nearly 80 percent of GIS users worldwide from all professions.

However, GIS and ESRI are not the same thing. ESRI provides GIS software, and there are multiple other vendors who do the same (MapInfo, TatukGIS, and Manifold to name a few). While we are huge fans of ESRI, we are also huge fans of other GIS vendors and applications for various reasons.

With that in mind, we have built Elements Management Software to be 100% compatible not only with ESRI products, but with other GIS applications as well.

Part of our thinking is that not everybody uses ESRI – a lot of people do, but some don’t. The other part of our thinking is that some day you may want to (gulp) switch from your existing GIS software to something else. I know, it’s a stretch – not likely, right? Well the good news is it really doesn’t matter to us what you use for your GIS – whatever it is you use, Elements will work for you.

Another reason we did not build Elements exclusively on one particular GIS platform, is because we’ve seen a lot of problems with asset management (and other) vendors trying to keep their software up to par with the GIS vendors. For example – let’s say we were built exclusively on “Platform A“ when “Platform A” makes a change we have to make that change in our software, like it or not. And that ultimately means that “Platform A” is now controlling our software – which is a strange concept to think about.

On Asset Management
I wish I could count how many times I’ve asked a municipal authority if they had some sort of asset management in place and their answer was “Yes, we’ve already got that – it’s uhh.. Arc-something”
“ESRI you mean? For your GIS?”
“Yes, that’s it!”

Earlier in this post I mentioned that GIS is not ESRI. Well GIS is not asset management either. Although GIS helps with asset management, and we use GIS together with asset management data, GIS in and of itself is not asset management. GIS specifically relates to geographic information. Asset management consists detailed information such as repair history, work orders, maintenance schedules, inventory control, asset lifecycle evaluation, cost information, and much more. The key is to combine your GIS data with a solid asset management package for a powerful combination of GIS-centric asset management.

In conclusion, a few thoughts on work orders.
A common data management method we’ve found among smaller utilities and municipalities is the good old “write it, stack it, can it” method. What’s that? That’s when you write something down on a sticky note or napkin, put it in a stack on the desk, and when the stack gets big enough, you move it to the can.

Another common practice is to use spreadsheets and Microsoft Word to keep track of work history information. While this is certainly a step up from the “write it, stack it, can it” method, there is still room for improvement.

After all – with Microsoft Excel, Google Docs, Open Office, and everything else that’s out there you should be able to come up with something to manage your work orders at pretty much no cost, right? The short answer is yes, you can probably use some combination of these programs to come up with something that will appear to do the job. The question is, when you need to find work orders that relate to a specific asset (a section of pipe, or valve, for example) will you find yourself searching through folders, opening and closing spreadsheets trying to find what you’re looking for? Or when you need to determine the expected lifecycle of an asset (based on repair history) can you do it? When you need to see the locations of all work orders that were completed last year, can you find the data?

The fact is you can light your house with candles and cook with a brick oven if you don’t want to pay your utility bill, but I’d rather pay the bill and use a light switch!

About novotX – Our Story

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Recently a lot of people have been asking us how Elements Management Software came to be.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Elements, feel free to check out these Videos.

It was late 2004 when we began discussions with a local secondary water system that was looking for a GIS-based work order and asset management solution.  Before we finished the initial meeting I could already see how this would play out – the water system would pay us a lot of money to build some great software package, then right smack dab in the middle of the project they would come to us all fired up because they would find a commercial  product that did the same thing for a fraction of the price.  Not good.  With that in mind, the first we told them was to take a look around and see what was already out there.  Given our experience in the software world we figured the chances were slim to none that we’d ever hear from them again – certainly there had to be a commercial product out there that would suit their needs – not only would it suit their needs, but they would be able to implement it much quicker and easier than developing an entirely new software package from the ground up.

After doing a bit of homework, they began conversations with us again.  What did they find?  Two things.  First, they found that yes, there were commercial products available that do this type of thing.  However they also discovered that with all of the licensing costs that would be involved, they would never be able to afford one of these fancy-schmancy packages.  Not only would the software break the bank, but even if the water system had unlimited funds, the packages were so dang confusing that they wouldn’t be able to figure out how to use it anyway.

Well, we were back on track.  We worked closely with them to put together a GIS-based management package that would be a fraction of the cost of other systems and much more user-friendly.  How did we do this?  By implementing several unique GIS integration methods that allow all users to access GIS data and tie asset management data to the GIS without purchasing any third-party GIS licenses.  Next, we came up with the ‘Folios’ concept – which made finding and organizing data much simpler than what was available in the existing systems.

In short, we finished the product and it wasn’t long before other water systems and municipalities found out about it.  Elements is now sold as a commercial product across the United States to utility systems and municipalities who are looking to take advantage of their GIS investment without spending a lot of money (and without spending a lot of time learning how to use complicated software).

If anyone has questions about Elements or novotX that they would like to see answered on our blog, please feel free to leave them in the comments!