20 Unique Customer Use Cases
Local governments and universities to park districts and water utilities: Our customers are some of the most forward-thinking, data-driven organizations tackling building and infrastructure challenges today.
Our 500+ customers have rolled up their sleeves and used their asset, work, resource, and space management data to increase productivity, cut costs, protect communities, improve transparency, support environmental sustainability initiatives, and more.
In this blog, we’re highlighting 20 unique customer use cases. Jump to a section that grabs your interest using the links below or scroll at your leisure for a boatload of good ideas. Enjoy!
- Saving Big and Working Smarter
- Keeping Commuters and Stakeholders Safe
- Sharing Data and Shattering Silos
- Combating the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Recouping Costs and Tax Dollars
- Supporting Environmental Sustainability
SAVING BIG AND WORKING SMARTER
1. City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Using 360-degree imagery and iPads, Pittsburgh inventoried tens of thousands of infrastructure assets, completed 800 playground inspections, processed 3,000 internal requests, and improved service delivery to residents. Pittsburgh was also able to save $180,000 and keep cross-department communication open.
2. City of Plymouth, Minnesota
The City of Plymouth set out to find a comprehensive solution for their parks and forestry, public works, engineering, GIS, and IT departments. Through a phased implementation, the Plymouth team worked together to inventory over 175,000 citywide assets. With a cloud-based deployment, powered by AWS, they’re estimating savings of nearly $40,000 annually on data entry, inspection efficiencies, and windshield time while improving service delivery to their residents.
3. Village of Buffalo Grove, Illinois
For the past five years, Buffalo Grove has focused on working smarter and finding ways to do more with less. Leveraging data, process improvements, and automations, they’ve shifted to a more proactive infrastructure management approach. Since 2017, they’ve seen a 14 percent decrease in reactionary requests while also achieving a 40 percent increase in overall task completion, all without adding staff.
4. Clay County Utility Authority, Florida
The Clay County team saw an opportunity to optimize the daily checks of their 170 sewer pump stations and the inspection of hundreds of miles of sewer mains with the help of our mobile applications. The move to mobile saves their team hours each day, has reduced labor costs by $41,000, and allows multiple crews to shift their focus to other pressing maintenance tasks and infrastructure projects.
5. Arlington County, Virginia
To reduce clogs and keep sewer lines flowing, the county is pairing our asset management software and ArcGIS to streamline 4,000 sewer segment flushings across 26 square miles. With different monthly, quarterly, or semi-annual preventative maintenance cycles, the team saves hours by organizing flushing tasks by geographical efficiency. They also use Analytics Dashboard gadgets to track completion and ensure nothing goes unflushed.
KEEPING COMMUNITIES and stakeholders SAFE
6. Multnomah County, Oregon
Responsible for 465 square miles, the Multnomah County Vector Control and Code Enforcement department protects over 800,000 residents by keeping mosquitos and rats at bay. With so much ground to cover, the team uses OpenGov to receive mobile work orders, capture real-time data on the go, document pesticide and insecticide quantities, meet regulatory reporting compliance, and spend smarter.
7. City of Arlington, Texas
To ensure their youngest citizens’ safety, the City of Arlington Parks and Recreation Department is leveraging Cartegraph asset management to capture their 61 monthly playground inspections. This move to mobile reduces the time it takes to perform checks by 30 percent, improves file retention and photo/video management, and streamlines playground issue notifications and maintenance management.
8. City of Plano, Texas
Pairing data with routing software, the city provides firefighters a real-time mapping of out-of-service hydrants en route. By ditching a paper list, they’re conserving resources and eliminating communication delays—ultimately saving lives and reducing property damage. The move to mobile is also helping document known problems and ensure parts are on hand to return these critical assets to service ASAP.
SHARING DATA AND SHATTERING SILOS
9. Adams County, Colorado
Digging into work and asset data, Adams County evaluates new material, equipment, and practices, resulting in more sustainable gravel roadways. The gravel road rehabilitation program targets areas of repeated flooding and increased traffic volume, resulting in an 80 percent decrease in complaints, half of all gravel roads rehabilitated, and international attention from the World Bank.
10. City of Chanhassen, Minnesota
The city is using technology and automations to increase efficiency and keep key stakeholders in the know. Staff can instantly see what work was completed, answer questions, and ensure the citizen requestor is followed up with a status on or solution to their issue. The team is also streamlining sweeping and meet stormwater compliance.
11. City of Kansas City, Missouri
Responsible for 98,000 streetlights, the street lighting services team has their work cut out for them. Using OpenGov as their official source of geospatial, work, and asset info, they’re consolidating repair requests via their 311-call center, construction companies, and nightly patrols. In turn, they’re responding to maintenance requests faster, saving tax dollars, and keeping commuters safer in low visibility situations.
COMBATING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
12. University of Notre Dame, Indiana
When COVID-19 hit, colleges and universities faced significant challenges related to space management and occupancy planning. The University of Notre Dame turned to our facility management system to prepare for a safe return to campus, including configuring the tools to visualize necessary modifications, accommodate physical distancing guidelines, adjust circulation controls, and more.
13. City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
As the need for COVID-19 testing and treatment rose, Philly needed to act quickly. Leveraging the space planning technology they already had in place, the team analyzed their options and decided to spin up a field hospital and testing center in a large stadium parking lot. They worked with the team to quickly configure the software to fit this new use case and communicated their plans across the city.
14. Penn State University, Pennsylvania
To prepare for a safe return to 23 campuses spread across 33 million ft2 of space, Penn State applied a capacity restriction of 60-square-feet per person to offices, lounges, and any other areas students and faculty would gather. They also drew social distancing layouts in CAD for high-priority spaces like classrooms and labs, and used KPI cards to monitor facility performance and space optimization.
Recouping costs and tax dollars
15. Village of Romeoville, Illinois
A single checkbox and workflows are making a massive difference in the restitution of property damages caused by contractors or accidents. Staff is now quickly identifying incidents, generating invoices with labor and materials, and attaching them to police reports. The city has increased restitution funds by 1,500 percent, and not one insurance request has been challenged thanks to detailed photos and records.
16. Town of Oro Valley, Arizona
Combining the power of work orders, customized fields, and reports, the public works department teamed up with legal to streamline property damage cost recovery. Instead of wasting hours trying to track down critical details, a single employee coordinates work orders and can generate a comprehensive invoice for legal in just a manner of clicks. The new workflow is saving more than 20 hours of staff time per year.
17. Collier County, Florida
Collier County reduced contractual deficiencies by over 17 percent across three airports. Using child records to track lease, insurance, and contact information on every hangar and land space, the team monitors Analytics Dashboard gadgets to capitalize on staffing and budgeting trends, proactively respond to expiring lease or insurance certificates, and promote spaces available for lease.
SUPPORTING ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
18. City of Waynesboro, Virginia
To help monitor and reduce stormwater runoff pollution, the City of Waynesboro stormwater team created a street-sweeper route map to see live information on which blocks have been swept as well as nutrient removal numbers. Through this program, the city can now provide MS4 compliance data to the Department of Environmental Quality in a matter of seconds, saving the city an estimated 140 staff hours per year.
19. City of Kingsport, Tennessee
Getting creative with data fields and automations, Kingsport is streamlining water compliance processes and reducing duplicate recordkeeping. As a result, field crews are spending half the time documenting responses, costs per task have been reduced by 30 percent, and office staff spend 75 percent less time per event and compile reports two days sooner—equating to $15,000 in savings.
20. City of Arlington, Texas
The Forestry and Beautification team is practicing smart and proactive stewardship of their urban forest. By leveraging tree data, they are developing a holistic, long-term plan to mitigate the impact of the Emerald Ash Borer in their community. With this approach, they’re reducing treatment and tree removal costs, optimizing replanting of less-susceptible species, and limiting the impact to their urban canopy.
Last Updated on February 23, 2024 by Jeff Neukom
Category: Asset Management