Data Assessment and Gap Analysis

Pastore Campus, the Facilities Management business unit of DCAMM, has embarked on an initiative to develop and implement a strategic plan of both short-term and long-term projects that would improve operational efficiency and the overall resilience of facility assets. To support that initiative, Urban GIS was tasked with reviewing and assessing asset documentation, facility drawings and related files associated with the Central Plant, Electrical, and Steam CUBs. The main objective of our review and assessment was to determine the relevance of asset documentation, facility drawings and related files for creating a GIS asset inventory and for developing a map-based solution for organizing, viewing, and updating Pastore Campus plans, drawings, and related information.

To begin, our team inventoried and sorted more than 5000 files. Secondly, we organized them by file type and assigned a level of priority for review. Finally, we created a catalog having numerous metrics for assessing the overall usefulness of each file within the context of GIS applicability. For the analysis, we relied on definitions assigned to four classification tiers to determine whether the files were spatially oriented/detailed and their relevance to creating a GIS asset inventory. We reported on existing conditions of the Pastore Campus data/current file organization and compared those findings with an ideal data model state to define a gap. We then proposed four strategic recommendations (Model Levels 1, 2, 3, and 4) for building a GIS asset inventory and for adopting entry level GIS tools to enable reliable and easy access to facility information within the Pastore Campus. We also researched ArcGIS Enterprise Implementation best practices and delivered a plan tailored to the client’s needs.

Building a GIS infrastructure asset inventory is a complex undertaking that requires careful planning, execution, and ongoing maintenance. With the valuable insight we provided the client is better positioned to make informed decisions and ensure enhanced overall asset management capabilities. We gave the client the tools necessary to effectively manage their infrastructure assets, optimize maintenance processes, and achieve greater operational efficiency.