Barbados Light and Power Company recently acquired Schneider Electric’s ArcFM™ application to improve electric network intelligence across their service area. After purchasing ArcFM, BLPC encountered a significant hurdle. They did not have any of their utility asset information in ArcGIS®, which is the database that ArcFM relies on. Instead, this asset information had been stored and maintained in their Enterprise Asset Management System, IBM Maximo®. In order to use ArcFM, BLPC needed to find a way to leverage their Maximo Assets, Service Addresses, and Locations to create features in GIS for Poles, Transformers, Turrets, Open Points, Service Points, and Meters.
One of BLPC’s trusted advisors recommended GeoWorx Sync, an off-the-shelf solution for GIS and Maximo integration. GeoWorx Sync can also be used for loading data from Maximo into GIS. After talking with Geonexus and seeing how the tool worked, BLPC determined it was a perfect fit to complete this daunting task.
GeoWorx Sync allows BLPC to create features in ArcGIS based on IBM Maximo Assets, Service Addresses, and Locations. It also maintains data integrity in both systems by providing bidirectional data synchronization between IBM Maximo and ArcGIS.
BLPC based their geodatabase on the ArcFM data model which provided an empty schema to be populated by Maximo data using GeoWorx Sync. GeoWorx Sync achieved this by creating the new features in GIS from GPS coordinates stored on the Maximo Location and then populating GIS attributes from Maximo Asset specifications. Data mappings were configured in GeoWorx Sync that provided the rules which governed the data loading process. While loading data into GIS, queries were configured to filter the dataset’s subtypes. This allowed BLPC to control which values were sent to GIS during synchronization. For example, BLPC’s pole subtypes were based on pole height so by building a query in Sync, they were able to update only 35′ and 40′ poles to a subtype of 3.
Another challenge that BLPC faced was populating tables related to their ArcFM feature classes. For example, connecting their Transformer feature class and the Transformer Unit table. The flexibility of GeoWorx Sync allowed for a configuration that created Transformer point features along with the corresponding related Transformer Units.
By implementing GeoWorx Sync, BLPC eliminated the need to manually create records in GIS based on existing asset records in Maximo. As a result, BLPC is benefitting from freed-up resources, financial savings, and reduced risk of human data entry error. Once the data loading phase is complete, BLPC will benefit from the bidirectional synchronization capabilities of GeoWorx Sync. They will depend on GeoWorx Sync to keep Maximo and ArcGIS aligned and accurate with two-way data mapping that won’t interfere with ArcFM auto-updaters.
