So, how do you use GIS?

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07-21-2014 04:16 PM
PETERONDEAU
New Contributor II

Just returning from the UC, my first. I'd love to hear from others how they are using GIS at their facilities.

About me, I'm a CAD guy by trade and training, I got drawn into the GIS world when I started my current job seven years ago. I'm mostly self taught by watching the free videos and by trial and (lots of) error. In spite of myself I've managed to create a very comprehensive dataset using the Local Gov't model and others as well as some homegrown schema. I'm a one man show and I'm working in the Construction & Planning dept at a medium sized university.

I'm using the data "behind the scenes" to help with all of the myriad questions I get asked daily about the state of the campus. How many X do we have? How many miles of edging do our grounds staff do? Where does this retention pond drain to? How many acres of grass do we maintain?

All of that is great, but I'd like to take that next leap. I know I could get a lot of support from other departments by putting this data out there on a server and generating the kinds of great products that I've just been exposed to. What's kept me from doing this in the past is a lack of support from my IT dept and me not feeling comfortable in administering a server. That all changed with ESRI online and Amazon EC2.

I know I can get the funding to set up a testbed and I have a few ideas for what products I'd like to develop first, Interactive campus map, people/department finder, utility locator.

What I'd really like is to hear from those of you who are further down the road. Are you using GIS for maintenance tickets/work orders? Safety patrols or incident reports? Room scheduling? What kinds of unusual uses have you come up with? All suggestions will potentially help me identify new customers and products to offer them.

Thanks,

Pete

3 Replies
ScottStocking
New Contributor II

We are building our utility networks (steam, chilled water etc) and 'grounds' information (landscaping, hardscapes, signs etc) in the GIS. Once they are completed we will link the spatial data to our existing Maximo CMMS.

Scott

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CarolynScholl
New Contributor

I am the Facilities Planning Manager for a large K-6 District in Southern California. Since I began using GIS here, we have used it for a variety of things from simply geocoding students to run demographic analysis, to displaying in a geographical way, our district-wide obesity studies. Currently, I am working on mapping projected students generated in new development areas based on neighborhood and where they are in the City's approval process. Last year I calculated actual student generation rates per dwelling unit type both district-wide and per Community Facilities District--which helps us when we talk to developers about what it will take to mitigate their impact on the District. We used GIS to develop our School Facilities Improvement District and exclusion area parcels map in order to put our school bond out for a vote. This was tricky because our map and data had to exactly match the county's tax assessor data. I have georeferenced our CAD site plans for our 45 schools and two Corporate sites in order to provide scaled, georeferenced maps for a variety of uses including emergency response and evacuation maps. We have also used GIS to help demonstrate need for grants. I continue to find new ways to apply GIS.

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AaronCheuvront
New Contributor II

As a fellow CAD guy I can tell you I feel your pain!!

Also self taught GIS but my background is from the space planning side of facilities so I have been focused on building interiors for most of my career.  We have been using GIS for space inventory and reporting since about 2001 here at the University of Washington.  It has been a long up hill battle to get anyone to sign on to using GIS for anything else but we are finally getting there.  The good news is that if you want to keep using CAD as an editing interface for some of your data you can!  All of our floorplans are maintained as standard CAD drawings with building coordinate systems (not georeferenced) and are in sync with the GIS version of the floorplans that are georeferenced.

The more visible use will soon be a new indoor navigation system that will provide walking directions from room to room across campus.  We are about to start beta testing soon before we go through another round of development but once it goes live it will be available to the public (with limited data/routes of course).

On the operations side we have begun a few project with many more waiting in the queue.  Some of the projects we are implementing now are:

Radiation Lab Surveys - tracking equipment and test locations for about 500 labs

Emergency Evacuation Maps - converting evac maps to GIS linked to live data, just open the map you need an print.  there are over 1200 evac maps on campus.

There are a lot of other projects we are waiting to get to that range from campus tour maps/apps to asset inventory and location to support regulatory requirements.  With the infrastructure we have in place we can track any sort of asset and create a wide range of map books in an extremely efficient process.