GAZ.GIS is a Smallworld-based system for gas network inventory and management. Gas network is probably the most critical one among utility networks in terms of safety issues involved – therefore it is so important to know the exact geographical location of the pipes and to be able to manage those assets properly.

The GE Smallworld environment, enriched with Globema’s functional modules, constitutes a powerful system for fast and convenient data access, reporting and statistics as well as resource management and planning.

Network Inventory

The inventory data model covers the full topology of high, medium and low pressure gas network, including:

• pipe segments and house connections, valving, house connection fittings, internal schematics,
• outage register for the distribution network, house connections and gas stations,
• installation points and customers,
• auxiliary objects such as parcels and buildings, address data, raster maps.

The Network Inventory module as well as other modules take advantage of a rich set of generic enhancement modules developed by Globema (GLB-Modules), for example: enhanced object editors, Address Gazetteer, Excel reporting, commit reminder, change register, queries and reports, etc.

Outage Management Support

The module helps organize engineering and business activities around a network outage:

• disconnecting the affected area with the closest working valves that have to be closed,
• finding all other disconnected parts of the network,
• generating cut-off notices for all the disconnected customers,
• estimating the leakage volume, based on static network computations.

A number of predefined statistical reports have been defined for this module to help organize prevention activities. The system will tell, for example, what is the most faulty valve type or indicate area with frequent and dense outages.

Engineering Computations

The module will calculate the distribution of pressure, flow, Reynold’s number in a selected part of the gas network, based on a number of input parameters, such as:

• gas parameters (e.g. temperature),
• pressure drop formula,
• calculation precision,
• tables of pipe roughness coefficients,
• classification of gas receivers.

The results are presented in a form of predefined queries and reports, as well as diagrams for a selected path.

The Engineering Computations module is a powerful tool for network engineers responsible for network control and regulation, either in real-life operation or simulation mode.

Service Provisioning Support

This application supports technical activities around service provisioning. The full workflow is realised, from a customer’s application for connection until an agreement is signed. This includes capacity analysis, top-level design, investment cost estimation and document generation.

Investment Planning

The module makes it possible to plan investment activities in details, such as network extension or reconstruction, and new customer connections. A number of reports can be then generated, including bill of materials, estimated cost of the investment in time, cost schedule, as well as simple ROI analysis which takes account of the investment cost, operations cost and energy sale schedule.

Network Operations Support

This module supports network maintenance activities such as:

• fault reporting and management,
• technical inspections of the network constructions and devices,
• estimation of the technical state of the network, which is input to the repair and investment decision making process
• maintenance work orders.

Software requirements

GE Smallworld Core Technology 4

GE Smallworld IAS 4