Northern Gas Networks (NGN) engineers use schematics to quickly get an overview of asset locations and sequences when responding to incidents. Schematics are a simplified view of the gas distribution network similar to a London Underground Map.
Historically, at NGN, Schematics are printed on paper and manually created in a CAD system, using an old GIS data extract, for reference. Over time the CAD and GIS systems have become out of sync with data updates being applied in one system and not in the other.
This is causing an operational risk to NGN as field engineers are making decisions based on schematics, which are potentially missing key information. Also, there is no uniform design for schematics; they can vary across operational areas, making them difficult to understand if you’re not unfamiliar with a particular area.
Producing a new set of schematics is a labour intensive process and may lead to further data errors.
Objectives
The project objectives are to understand and record:
1. What accurate data should look like
2. What is missing from GIS data to make it accurate
3. What a standard schematic should look like
4. What the process flows for creating a schematic should be
