IMPLEMENTING A GIS AND CMMS FROM SCRATCH A CASE STUDY OF THE ALLEN COUNTY SANITARY ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

The Allen County Sanitary Engineering Department, like most other utilities, is under increasing pressure to maintain and enhance their collection system infrastructure. Some of this pressure is derived from existing or pending regulations such as Capacity Management, Operations and Maintenance (CMOM), Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statement 34 (GASB 34) and consent orders as well as the need to “get more done with less”. The County has a staff of experienced personnel that are very familiar with their system, but find it difficult to wade through the volumes of data requests to best prioritize their work. Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) have claimed to solve this problem by providing a means of organizing all relevant information in order to present it in a logical manner for decision-making. Distributed buried infrastructure can pose additional difficulties if it is not properly documented. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are particularly well suited to management of collection systems.This study follows the processes that Allen County went through to gather data, select an appropriate CMMS and implement that system.