The January issue of the American Public Works Association’s (APWA) magazine, APWA Reporter, is out. This issue is dedicated to Technology. Public Works is a location-based business, as such, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is foundational technology to support the mission. GIS is the mission-critical enterprise IT system that is designed to turn location data into insight that fuels better efficiencies and decision making. The importance of GIS in public works is echoed throughout this month’s magazine.
As noted in APWA President, Dominick Longobardi’s Message, GIS is the most acknowledged technology in the seven year history of the annual APWA membership voting for the top trending public works technologies. I am proud to be a member of the APWA Technology Committee. We are off to a quick start, working on taking the top trending technology in a new direction to connect it to the top public works challenges, as well as providing key content in the APWA Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit later this month.
GIS is highlighted as a key part of Asset Management in an article about compliance with the EPA water service line requirements which included a link to a StoryMap on the water service line inventory program from Plano, Texas.
Another article on Asset Management from Frisco, Texas on re-evaluation of your tools, includes information about the role of GIS in this critical part of the public works mission. Pima Co., Arizona wrote an article about automating their routing of inspectors that included GIS. The story from San Diego, California on increasing productivity with limited staff for their Capital Improvement Program also included GIS.
I had the privilege of contributing two articles. One on how to take advantage of the latest technologies to mitigate challenges and another on the most important part of technology projects is people. These cover important concepts that are often missed in technology implementations, tie technology solutions to mitigating challenges, and be sure to prepare the organization for the technology, not just preparing the technology for the organization.
For decades GIS has continued to become embedded in daily public works operations everywhere, and that development will continue, especially as GIS technology continues to get more affordable and easier to use, GIS data becomes better and more available, and public works agencies continue to move away from paper, spreadsheets, PDFs, and the like. Another reason for the increased importance of GIS is its ability to function as a gateway to integrate with other valuable technologies like AI, drones, real-time data streams, and digital twins, while delivering significant business value.
For more information on how Next-Generation Public Works are Powered by Enterprise GIS and see examples on how GIS is supporting the entire spectrum of public works operations, please visit this article online and our website.
