Aspen GIS Offers a Proven Tool for Effective Resource Asset Management

Aspen’s GIS Department, under the direction of Anton Kozhevnikov and his team of dedicated GIS specialists, is preparing to hit the road with a new product: the Resource Asset Management System, or RAMS.

Roughly 10 years ago while working privately as a GIS consultant, Anton was tasked with creating an inventory of assets for his client. What the agency didn’t anticipate was Anton’s tenacity in capturing GIS data. While the client was primarily interested in the short-term pursuit of being able to create maps with towers and circuit lines, Anton saw a much larger picture, which included tracking all relevant assets like culverts, gates, access roads, and water crossings – not to mention the entire Right-of-Way and the natural resources that existed there. What became of the original request is now a very robust GIS database, containing everything the agency owns, maintains, and is responsible for within roughly 1,600 miles of linear infrastructure. Since its development, the RAMS model is still in use, continues to be an effective tool for the agency, and has caught the eye of the industry.

Aspen will start using the RAMS model for other clients as well. This tool will catalogue and analyze all infrastructure and environmental resources, as well as high-resolution orthophotography/videography and LiDAR. Based on sensitive resources in the field, a utility can develop pre‑negotiated Resource Conservation Measures (RCMs) to protect sensitive resources during operation and maintenance (O&M) activities within utility jurisdictional rights-of-way. These RCMs are included in the RAMS, and can be used by a utility (or other clients with extensive and distributed assets) in pre‑planning to prioritize O&M activities. More importantly it can be used in real-time by the crews in the field via gradated areas of continuous versus intermittent maintenance activities based on various factors, including impact on the resource type, type of maintenance activity, spatial data accuracy, regulatory audit needs, and others. Benefits of RAMS include increased worker and public safety and significant savings of time and money from streamlined environmental review by the utility, land managers, and regulatory and resource agencies. By developing the model in a GIS, resource specialists can assist the field crews with daily work routines and keep an owner in compliance with land management regulatory requirements for the conservation of resources. The GIS-centric database can be operational and used on a daily basis by a utility’s resource managers, field crew managers and staff, land management, and regulatory agencies to identify and plan work based on sensitive resource protection requirements.