American Water Selects GIS-GPS System to Collect Field Data
American Water, the largest investor-owned water utility in the United States, has selected the GeoCollector and Trimble GPS Pathfinder ProXH receiver solutions for field data collection, according to a March 17 press release from ESRI and Trimble.
The GeoCollector and ProXH solutions combine geographic information system (GIS) software and global positioning aystem (GPS) hardware that make it easy to collect subfoot position and descriptive information about assets in the field and efficiently transfer the information to a utility's central database.
The GeoCollector solution combines ESRI's ArcPad mobile data collection software, the Trimble GPScorrect extension for ArcPad, and the Trimble GeoXH handheld from the GeoExplorer 2008 series GPS unit. The Trimble ProXH GPS receiver solution is used in conjunction with a field computer and Trimble's GPScorrect extension for ArcPad.
"With GeoCollector or ProXH, we can collect utility as-built information quickly in the field and efficiently incorporate it into our central GIS," said Mark Khodash, GIS applications project manager for New Jersey American Water. "This gives us a faster turnaround for updating our asset data, getting better information back out to our field personnel and, ultimately, better service to our customers." American Water serves approximately 15 million customers in 32 states.
Michael Gray, operations and maintenance manager of American Water field operations, said, “The move also gives us the flexibility to add new GIS capabilities as we grow our system.”