Utilities

Inventorying water distribution systems, installing new meters and automating billing processes.

The Problem

Tilson had recently been awarded a statewide fiber construction project for the state of Kentucky to provide broadband access across the state. The project was to survey 10,000 utility poles—including attachments, spans, and specific attributes—and provide an MRE solution for each pole in order to apply for an attachment license for the fiber cable. Tilson had been utilizing several other data collection apps, with mixed results. Prior to Fulcrum, Tilson was primarily tackling projects that had 50 to 500 poles for a given project, primarily small cell nodes. The collection process often involved taking photos with a camera and a GPS unit, writing records in Excel, then joining them back up in the office. Tilson needed a solution where data was only keyed in once, could be monitored remotely, and exported in a variety of methods easily.

The Challenge
After a series of deadly explosions, including two high-profile events in 2014-2015, the Public Service Commission (PSC) announced expanded mandated natural gas meter inspection requirements. To establish a baseline, gas companies must prove to the PSC that they have physically inspected all of their residential and commercial meters by April of 2020.

Field asset inventory with Fulcrum
The Philadelphia Water Department is in the process of removing their high pressure fire hydrants, left in place after the HPFS system was decommissioned in the mid-1990’s. Rodriguez was brought into the project to provide a final inventory of the hydrants and to document any potential construction impacts to surrounding street features (i.e. ADA ramps, paving, poles, etc.). The assumption was that the inventory would be performed using paper maps and digital cameras.

Before Fulcrum
Northpower performs 85,000 pillar inspections over a cycle of 3 years. Until recently, Windows Mobile-based phones with 2.8” displays were used with a forms solution to capture inspection results. Paper-based maps were used to log and navigate to each pillar to conduct inspections.

Guma Valley Water Corporation
For our first assignment using Fulcrum, we were contracted by the World Bank and Guma Valley Water Corporation (GVWC) – the Government owned utility responsible for providing clean water to the inhabitants of Freetown, Sierra Leone.

The Problem

In 2019, the State of Michigan required water providers to complete a water distribution system material inventory. This inventory needed to include water service line material information and be complete by January 1, 2025. For the City of Wyoming, a community of approximately 75,000 residents with over 20,000 water service lines, this information needed to be better organized and aligned.

Find out how to choose a solution that improves your workflows today and can also adapt to the changing needs of your field organization.

Field inspections play a crucial role in maintaining safety, efficiency, and compliance, but outdated processes often get in the way. Paper-based systems, slow data sharing, and manual errors can cause delays, frustrations, and even compliance risks for field teams. It’s time to embrace a better way of working. This guide is designed to help you modernize inspections with practical, actionable steps. By identifying pain points and adopting modern tools, you can transform inspection workflows into efficient, streamlined processes that save time, reduce errors, and boost productivity.

Fourth of July in Southern California was different this year. I’m sure most were prepared to enjoy family, friends and traditional fireworks. They most likely had made their last grocery store runs and mapped out their entertainment plan, when out of nowhere the plans were literally shook up. An earthquake measuring 6.4 in magnitude shook at 10:33 a.m., causing a swift change to the Independence Day celebrations in Searles Valley and surrounding areas. In classic Cali fashion, some felt the shaking happening and kept moving afterward thinking it’s normal California stuff since they have become accustomed to experiencing these tremors.

The systems that provide our world with power and electricity require enormous amounts of utility data and compliance monitoring to function effectively. Energy and utility companies must constantly monitor, analyze, and respond to events that affect these complex networks to ensure their customers have electricity. What’s more, the production and distribution of energy are subject to numerous regulations, making utility data and compliance requirements crucial for operations to be documented in meticulous detail. The ability to streamline and integrate data coming in from multiple sites is critical to staying ahead of these demands.

At our core, Spatial Networks is a geography company. From building geospatial technology products to collecting, organizing, and analyzing geodata, we eat, drink, and breathe geography. It’s sobering to learn that, for many of our customers, Fulcrum often provides their first exposure to the wonderful world of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

I had the opportunity to represent Fulcrum at the inaugural DroneDeploy Conference in San Francisco, CA last week. One of the goals of the conference was to “focus on real-world drone deployments across industries driven by people”. The conference had people in attendance from an array of industries including end users, software providers, and developers interested in folding aerial survey data into applications.