Esri Applications Used for Meeting Asset Management and Consent Decree Goals

In western Maryland, the City of Cumberland maintains more than 150 miles of water mains and 170 miles of sewer mains and provides service to 40,000 customers. Since 2001, the city has been operating under a consent decree with the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Maryland Department of the Environment to remediate combined sewer systems' overflows by separating the two systems, upgrading the wastewater system, and constructing a storage facility. To help meet the consent decree requirements, the city implemented a work management system with accurate geographic information system (GIS) data that tracks and demonstrates improvements. Esri's commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) applications enabled the city to track, analyze, and report on daily activities and improvements made in response to the consent decree. 

The city faced several challenges to meet its consent decree requirements, including fiscal difficulties from declining manufacturing in the area, aging infrastructure, and staffing challenges. The city needed an efficient, cost-effective way to improve its GIS data and implement an asset management system in support of the consent decree requirements. City staff also sought to modernize their workflow processes and replace outdated and time-consuming paper maps and inspection and assignment tracking forms. 

Esri Silver partner geographIT, a division of EBA Engineering, Inc., is located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The firm's staff provide full-service GIS and application development services that focus on water/wastewater data and processes, cloud configuration, emergency management, next generation 911 support, and local municipality support services. The team included geographIT project manager Joe DeLuca, GISP, as well as project manager Raquel Ketterman and GIS lead Amy Baker, both from the City of Cumberland.

The city implemented a phased approach that incorporated a combination of ArcGIS Workforce, ArcGIS Collector, ArcGIS Dashboards, and ArcGIS Survey123 applications to improve workflow processes. Work is now assigned and tracked using Workforce. Survey123 is configured to link to the associated Workforce assignment and capture labor, material, and equipment usage per assignment. Collector is used to eliminate paper-based inspection workflows for hydrants, valves, and manholes. Inspection data and work assignments are displayed in Dashboards to track progress, improve reporting, and communicate results to the management team.

The phased approach allowed the city to absorb the implementation cost over several years while also giving field staff time to adjust to the new workflow processes. 

The COTS applications, configured to work in conjunction, enabled city staff to implement an asset management program that helps them meet their stated consent decree milestones while staying within the limits of their resources. Crews are now equipped with mobile devices that facilitate assigning, tracking, and collecting work-related data remotely. Inspection and project information is captured digitally in the field and displayed via dashboards in real time. These improvements allow city staff to spend less time printing maps and managing paper forms and more time analyzing and enhancing the data. With improved assignment tracking and information about associated labor, materials, and equipment costs and quantities, the city can now perform the analysis needed to more accurately develop cost and resource budgets and perform enhanced repair versus replacing analysis on assets.

Using Esri applications improved data tracking, enhanced data collection, and resulted in more efficient data processes. This enabled the city to meet its consent decree requirements and ultimately provide improved services to its customers.