case study
The City of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, has worked diligently to replace an outdated, stand-alone GIS with an Esri enterprise GIS. Starting in 2017, the city secured resources and implemented a common geospatial platform to efficiently manage data, deploying location intelligence solutions to city employees and taxpayers. However, pipe inspection data was still in siloed and inaccessible to many stakeholders.
Once the city was on a stable Esri platform, Sheboygan began to look for other data silos that were inefficient. One of the first areas identified was its underground pipe inspection program. The asset management team could not visualize a complete picture of the sewer system and thus often struggled to analyze maintenance and asset data. Gathering, correlating, and managing disparate data were challenges when planning for sewer rehabilitation. The field inspection team's legacy CCTV pipe inspection software was antiquated and lacked any integration with GIS, forcing the team to use printed asset maps and make manual notes. A substantial effort was needed just to keep the system functional. Additionally, the system generated immense video data that was often transferred to physical media, like flash drives, which were siloed and inaccessible to the majority of the city employees.
ITpipes provides software inspection solutions for water and wastewater utilities to help effectively collect, analyze, manage, and integrate pipeline inspection data in a fully integrated Esri solution. The company is an Esri partner, and ITpipes software is certified Release Ready and is listed on the ArcGIS Marketplace site.
Project Team—ITpipes Team: Ross Brown, Cori Criss, Jonathan Hayes. City of Sheboygan Team: Andy Bartell
Sheboygan field crews inspect underground pipes using ITpipes Mobile.
After the city reviewed several solutions, ITpipes emerged as the best choice to meet the city's needs. ITpipes gave the city powerful ArcGIS mapping tools, provided pipeline analytics visualization, and instant access to comprehensive pipe inspection information. Pipeline videos and condition assessment information would be available with a single click. ITpipes Mobile, Web, and Sync software were identified as key modules to deliver visibility and control over Sheboygan's underground infrastructure.
The new solution was simple and easy to use for the team. In the field, pipe inspection crews benefitted from map/asset correlation. With ITpipes software directly importing the asset information from the GIS, asset header information was automatically imported for each pipe inspection. With a simple user interface, crews were able to inspect and notate defects in more sanitary and storm sewer pipes each day. Then, when the field crews returned at the end of the workday, their computers were put online, and the CCTV inspection data automatically synced to ITpipes Web, eliminating "lost" inspection data. Through a configured Esri web app, office staff are instantly connected to the most current pipe inspection videos and reports on their Esri web map.
Sheboygan utilizes Esri's ArcGIS Dashboards to broadcast real-time metrics for buried asset maintenance to all users across the agency.
"I like the ease of operation for ITpipes. Being able to quickly find a line and or pull up videos for reference on a project is very user-friendly. Using the GIS system is much faster than looking through pages of maps, especially when in the field." —Adam Fryman, Field Inspector, City of Sheboygan
Sheboygan now uses Esri's ArcGIS Enterprise as the authoritative source for dozens of datasets, including ITpipes' pipe inspection data. ITpipes' platforms replaced paper maps, increased efficiency of inspection and maintenance workflows, connected all city employees with data, centralized data efforts, removed duplicate workflows, and allowed for easy data connectivity with constituents.
In the field, crews benefit from map/asset correlation by directly importing the asset information from the GIS, gaining an increase of approximately 30 percent more pipes inspected monthly.
In the office, the ability to visualize the location of underground pipe defects has been a critical tool for Sheboygan engineers to monitor and plan asset maintenance, repair, and replacement of pipeline infrastructure in ways they could never before. Utilizing Esri ArcGIS Dashboards, real-time pipe inspection and maintenance metrics are available to all users, creating accountability, but more importantly, reducing time spent on compliance reports by almost 90 percent.
In summary, integrating ITpipes software and solutions with Esri's ArcGIS Enterprise platform has shown to be a cost-saving investment for Sheboygan—multiplying efficiency, increasing data accuracy, and eliminating waste.
Combining multiple systems and datasets into a collaborative workspace provides a simple, single-click solution for end users to access pipe and inspection information they need from a single, streamlined application.
ArcGIS enables a holistic approach with fresh insights about performance, risks, resources, and costs.