What Does GIS Really Mean for Asset Management?

Asset Management is a critical task for any organization. Assets “live” in space; a location in the world. A GIS lets us visualize an asset’s location, understand its relationship with other assets or features, interpret and ask questions about a feature and its connections, and analyze or interpret patterns and trends. 

A GIS needs to be viewed as three individual pieces: a system of record, a system of engagement and a system of insight. The system of record is where most companies who manage assets have focused their efforts. It is where everything ABOUT the asset is measured, recorded and tracked. It contains core attributes about type, age, location, etc. It stores related information such as: condition; who installed it; and work order numbers. It can store whether data is referenced to work management or external systems. While it does provide some return it is primarily seen as a cost and much of the recognized returns are in the form of soft savings not hard dollars. Good examples of systems of record are Novara’s Intrepid? and PODS or Esri ArcGIS/As-Built Editing and Analysis tools and UPDM.

A system of engagement is an environment where data is PROVIDED to users beyond the core group of users. Historically, this was a web based solution for people to visualize data, find asset locations or discover information about assets. More recently we find this niche filled by mobile applications and Dashboards for operations awareness or results-based accountability where managers use performance to evaluate employees. The return on investment is easier to realize with the System of Engagement. It leverages the efforts involved in the system of record and simply exposes the content in a usable way. Great examples of this type of solution are the Novara Leak Survey dashboard or our Intrepid? DSS (Decision Support System).

While a system of insight is a platform for ANALYTICS and understanding your data. It supports the decision making process, which is a critical function in any enterprise role. Decisions should be made on knowledge, information and understanding however, often in the absence of hard data, decisions are made using experience and logic. A GIS based system of insight provides the necessary content to make informed decisions which reduces risk. Again this provides high value and savings to an organization. We are currently work on a damage prevention model that would help operators identify areas or activities that are prone to damage so they can mitigate or reduce the impact.

So what does this mean to asset managers? Obviously, we need to continue to focus on data management. A decision is only as good as the information it is based on. But we also need to shift some of our focus onto the creation of systems of engagement and systems of insight so that we empower our employees and create a foundation for knowledgeable, information based decision making. Tying the three systems together will profoundly empower the organization both office and field to function in unison and provide substantial savings of benefits to the organization as a whole. Not only will the organization receive a high return on their investment but safety will increase, risk will lower and transparency will skyrocket. 

Contact me directly to learn more about this topic.