8CIOReview | | SEPTEMBER 2022IN MY OPINIONIMPLEMENTING GIS AND ASSET MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC AGENCIES AND MUNICIPALITIEBy Yazdan T. Emrani, P.E., Director of Public Works, City of Glendale, CAIncreasingly public agencies and municipalities are looking at streamlining their individualized GIS operations and moving towards an enterprise-wide GIS. In today's world of shrinking budgets and tight job markets, it is no longer feasible to have separate entities within an organization having separate and different GIS or asset management operations. It also makes good sense to achieve efficiency and maximize the dollars invested through achieving the main objective for the whole organization and across many departmental and group lines.Experience has shown that a significant number of infrastructure repairs are performed on an unscheduled basis. These repairs can cost anywhere from 5-16 times the normal planned repairs. In this time of budget cuts and limited resources, the ability to optimize the use of maintenance dollars by employing predictive models in the planning stages is rapidly becoming a reality of infrastructure management. The use of a Predictive Performance GIS and Asset Management model to optimize Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) and maintenance budgets, identify and prioritize repairs, and create "What...If" scenarios where you can input various funding levels and determine the optimum repair scenarios for your infrastructure, is critical.An integrated GIS and asset management system is a methodical approach of optimizing the allocation of scarce resource to meet a defined objective. This is otherwise known as the"Goldilocks Approach" to operations and maintenance; not too much that you are spending money unnecessarily, and not too little that it will cost you more later due to neglect and deferred maintenance, but just the right amount at the right time. Yazdan T. Emrani
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