BMROSS was contracted to create a Document Management System, for a number of municipalities, that would bring together information pertaining to municipal infrastructure, including construction drawings, background documents, and asset details. To make this possible, a data model was created documenting the relationships between each data type and any documents.
Asset inventories and plans were created by georeferencing and digitizing construction drawings using a Geographic Information System (GIS). The information collected included streetlights, water, storm and sanitary pipes and facilities. Any additional documents available were linked to the appropriate pipes or facilities.
Two methods of accessing the information were provided to municipal staff in recognition of the fact that people have different approaches when performing searches. A Map Viewer was provided, along with themed maps that permit the user to view, query and print maps. If a pipe or facility is selected, the original construction drawing can be opened along with related documents such as Certificate of Approvals, Permit to Take Water and Engineers’ Reports.
The second interface is a MS Access database that organizes all the information by either road segment or facility. When a road segment is selected, all storm, sanitary, water, road, bridge and streetlight information for that road segment is displayed. Original construction drawings and other documents can also be displayed. The ability to attach new information to a particular component was included. The new information could include maintenance or repair records, Ministry orders, or an entire document trail for a particular complaint.
Since a data model exists, the Document Management System allows for expansion to add more asset or information types, or new GIS layers.