Underground Utility Mapping Accuracy vs. Operational View

[RickPowers]

I manage the GIS system for a mid size utility company that provides electric, gas, water and wastewater service to ~450,000 customers.  We use ESRI SDE, Online/Enterprise and ArcFM.  Historically, we have mapped cluster features, like water and gas valves, spaced out to provide a better operational view to meet the needs of our system operators.  However, since we began collecting sub-foot accurate GPS data a few years ago, there has been a real push from our engineering departments to map to the exact GPS coordinates.  This creates a conflict between differing organizational needs.

I'd like feedback from other utilities about their experiences with differing accuracy needs and how they compromise between them.  

Thanks in advance for any info you can provide!

Rick Powers

Knoxville Utilities Board

Knoxville, TN

[CortWilson]

I have heard of other organizations using feature representations to overcome the issue you have described.  The asset gets GPSd at it's actual location, but a representation rule places the symbol at a specified offset.  I have not tried this myself, so I have no idea on how well it would be supported across the ESRI Enterprise gamut of products.