GIS-Based Engineering Management Service Functions: Taking GIS beyond Mapping for Municipal Governments

Abstract

A geographic information system (GIS) is found to be a platform of choice for meeting the needs of several core engineering functions. However, there is a dearth of GIS usage for engineering management service functions (EMSFs), which typically are specific to individual jurisdictions. This study outlines a simple approach for automating EMSFs on a GIS platform and demonstrates its efficacy. In the first phase of this research, a review of GIS applications in various municipal government functions is conducted. The review indicated that most municipal governments have currently employed GIS for a variety of general administrative services such as revenue collection, data archival, and information dissemination purposes. The proposed approach is demonstrated by developing a GIS model for a sanitary sewer reimbursement (GIS-MSSR) program at a fast-growing urban municipality. Data modeling issues related to representing complex management tasks within the context of a relational database model are discussed. Development of functional requirement specifications for GIS models and their implementation are also discussed. The effectiveness of the approach is verified by highlighting productivity gains resulting from the development of GIS-MSSR. The research concluded that several complex engineering service management functions can be automated on GIS platforms to realize substantial productivity gains. Automating multiple tasks, however small they might be, in an integrated environment can increase the productivity even further.