ERA Water automates its asset protection with X-Info DBYD suite

Waterproofing Eastern Adelaide is being delivered by the Eastern Region Alliance (ERA); an alliance of the six councils in Metropolitan Adelaide’s eastern suburbs. The following three councils are directly involved in the planning and delivery of the project:

• City of Burnside
• City of Norwood Payneham and St Peters
• Town of Walkerville

Easter Regional Alliance Water’s (ERA Water) 49 kilometre pipe network is reducing the reliance of potable water from the Murray River for irrigation.

ERA Water’s infrastructure captures storm water flowing down Third and Fourth creeks in Adelaide. This captured water goes through a treatment process and is stored during the winter months. In summer this stored and filtered water is distributed through the ERA Water pipe network to parks and reserves.

This drought proofs Adelaide’s eastern suburbs by supplying an alternate source of water supply to participating Councils and provides a cost effective alternate to SA Water.

We are proud at Mipela to care for and protect ERA Water’s pipe network with X-Info DBYD suite.

General Manager, Wally Iasiello said, “I was pleased with the support Mipela was able to provide in implementing an automated response system for our DBYD enquiries.”

More information on this interesting water conservation project can be found here.

ARTC implements X-Info DBYD suite as their automated response system

ARTC is a vital part of the transport supply chain for Australia with a 8,500 km rail network across five states and working with rail operators to provide access to rail for business and producers across Australia.

Earlier this year, Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) contacted Mipela to discuss automating their Dial Before You Dig (DBYD) responses.

Being a DBYD member, ARTC up until this point had been manually responding to each enquiry.

The business required a fast and reliable response system that directed all enquirers to seek authorisation before breaking ground within a radius of the rail corridor.

Ensuring timely responses provides ARTC with visibility of these enquirers’ requests in the interactive map on the X-Info DBYD suite dashboard.

ARTC now have a responsive and reliable system working 24/7 providing peace of mind.

How Gladstone Area Water Board saves time processing permits using X-Info DBYD suite

Back in 2013 Gladstone Area Water Board (GAWB) were one of Mipela’s first clients to utilise the Works Management module that is associated with the Dial Before You Dig process.

Works Management module is an optional module that compliments X-Info DBYD suite by automating the management of permits. It provides a seamless workflow solution to view, action and report inquiries that have authority to conduct proposed works in the vicinity of the Client’s infrastructure from X-Info DBYD suite for the Client’s “Permit to Work” processes.

X-Info Works Management module is integrated into the same dashboard as the Client’s current X-Info DBYD suite portal.

This module can be applied to works in specific areas such as road reserves or high risk assets.

Tina Underwood, Technical Officer – GIS and Drafting at Gladstone Area Water Board said, “The Works Management module has provided so much value to our business. Not only does it automatically filter out the DBYD responses that will not require a permit, but the workflows also make sure that the permits are processed in accordance with the procedure, meaning no one drops the ball and no application is missed.”

“And it’s all there in the same system, along with any captured communications, contact details and associated documents. It’s the perfect audit trail.”

In early 2020, Gladstone Area Water Board further enhanced its permit management by introducing the use of mobile data capture app, X-Info Aware to the process. This app allows the inspectors to receive and respond to tasks assigned to them in real time, mitigating the need for paper forms. Following an inspection and approval, the permits can be automatically issued via email to the nominated person.

Managing contaminated land compliance

Mipela recently rolled out a solution to automate and manage contaminated land compliance and reporting using X-Info DBYD suite’s Works Management module to the City of Sydney. This solution adds an additional layer (pardon the GIS joke) of protection to human safety and the environment in and around contaminated sites.

The solution uses spatial data to automatically identify excavation risks near or within known contaminated land sites. Once identified, the respondent automatically receives an email confirming they are within the buffer zone for a known contaminated land site and are provided with a detailed site plan, Environmental Management Plan (EMP) and Site Audit Statement (SAS) – all within just a few minutes of them lodging their Dial Before You Dig enquiry.

This sort of workflow automation that can be used for all types of environmentally sensitive sites like:

• Contaminated land (PFAS, PCBs, etc.)
• Hazardous disused assets (eg. decommissioned asbestos pipes, tanks)
• Ecological regeneration sites
• Natural ecological hazards (eg. acid sulphate soils, toxic weeds, invasive species).

City of Greater Dandenong implements DBYD automated response system

Late last year the City of Greater Dandenong contracted Mipela GeoSolutions to provide them with its Dial Before You Dig automated response system, X-Info DBYD suite. The Council had just become new members to the Dial Before You Dig Association in a move to better protect their assets.

The Council required user authentication using Azure Active Directory over OAuth2, a new function that Mipela offers its clients. Having its own product development and solution specialists inhouse enables Mipela to be able to continuously improve its offerings in this manner, offering these new features to all clients once they have been released.

Ensuring communication channels are open through a dedicated project team is one of the key measures of success in this project running as smoothly as it did.

“The Mipela team were proficient and experienced in guiding us through the Dial Before You Dig automation process. We’re new to this and having that level of support and expertise made the transition a smooth one”, said Milind Joshi, City of Greater Dandenong’s GIS Coordinator. “They were able to coordinate with our ICT team to ensure the Active Directory authentication was established with a minimum of fuss.”

“From a Mipela perspective, it’s always great to hear back from a happy client that their project has gone so well”, said Karen Thompson, Mipela’s Client Success Team Lead.

The City of Greater Dandenong can rest assured its underground assets are much safer now with Dial Before You Dig and X-Info DBYD suite.

Automation in Remote Regions Delivers Multiple Benefits to Council

Isaac Regional Council is the resources capital of Queensland, producing more than half of Queensland’s total saleable coal.

The Council’s role is to provide facilities throughout the region in an effective and efficient manner and encourage strategic and sustainable development of the area for the benefit of all residents. As part of Councils continuous improvement strategy, they have looked to technology and in turn to Mipela to implement an automated response system for their Dial Before You Dig (DBYD) enquiries, namely X-Info DBYD suite.

Automation of this service ensures valuable staff resources are retained for important work that technology can’t replace. Regional areas strive to retain great people that deliver value to Council, which was a large part of Isaac Regional Council looking for a solution to these DBYD tasks.

X-Info DBYD suite also delivers a service that responds to enquiries 24/7, regardless of weekends or public holidays.

Having an automated response system in X-Info DBYD suite now means that enquirers will get a quick, accurate response, ensuring Council are doing all they can to not only protect their assets but to also protect council residents from unforeseen disruption.

Greater Shepparton City Council moves to X-Info DBYD suite

Greater Shepparton City Council is located in the heart of the Goulburn Valley and is the fourth largest provincial centre in Victoria, boasting a population of over 65,000 residents.

Council had gone down the path of automating their Dial Before You Dig responses a few years earlier but were having issues with product usability and reporting. They needed access to an automated response system for the Dial Before You Dig enquiries that gave them real time reporting and data availability that could assist them in identifying upcoming planning from external contractors.

Once they had chosen and implemented Mipela’s X-Info DBYD suite, the results were immediate. They were able to free up their resources to focus on working together with the public to plan on minimising disruptions to the community from development or roadworks. Council staff have greater access to the DBYD enquiries through the portal to gauge what kind of work and frequency is planned within their Council region to forecast of workloads and potential environmental impact. Contractors are communicating more clearly with Council as a result of the DBYD response information that they are receiving.

Russell Hardie, Permit Inspection Officer for Greater Shepparton City Council said, “X-Info DBYD suite runs seamlessly in the background and provides us with advanced reporting. Not only does X-Info DBYD suite protect our assets but the range of real time data available is being used to benefit the community providing minimal disruption from any development or roadworks”.

If you’d like to learn more about how automating your Dial Before You Dig responses can work for your organisation, contact our DBYD specialist, Jaci, on 1300 807 770.

X-Info DBYD suite Perfect Fit for ATOM

Australian Terminal Operations Management (ATOM) is a company dedicated to operating 3rd party bulk fuel facilities safely, reliably and effectively for its customers. With a head office in Melbourne, ATOM currently operates and maintains 17 bulk fuel terminals across Australia.

National HSSE & Operations Excellence Manager for ATOM, Leon Harris, identified that having a lot of underground pipeline exposed them to potential significant risk when third parties are working close by.

ATOM were in need of a robust system to ensure they were informed of any potential digging and to provide the information to manage the actions of third parties within a certain parameter of their asset.

The implementation of X-Info DBYD suite gave Leon assurance that adequate controls are in place to mitigate any incidents.

Leon said, “X-Info DBYD suite has created a barrier to risk for their assets. In addition, the automation allows resources to focus on high risk areas, eliminating the administrative burden that comes with manual processing.”

The introduction of X-Info DBYD suite is providing everyone with an extra level of safety with little to no effort by the ATOM team.

Automated back end processes provides Gladstone Area Water Board with improved responsiveness for issuing of permits

The repetitive manual processing involved in handling communications, issuance of Permit to Work and data management within Gladstone Area Water Board (GAWB) in response to their DBYD enquiries has proven to be time and resource intensive and prone to errors and inconsistencies.

Mipela implemented a Works Management solution for GAWB to provide a seamless workflow automation solution to view, action and report inquiries that have authority to conduct proposed works in the vicinity of GAWB’s infrastructure from X-Info DBYD suite for their “Permit to Work” processes. The objective was to automate back end processes and centralise data to create certainty and responsive issuing of permits and reports.

With a fully automated Works Management module in place, GAWB is able to view, action and report on asset queries such as Permit to Works applications, resulting in massive improvement in turnaround time for permit issuance.

The automated workflow has also significantly increased workflow accuracy and compliance to processes and information coming from a single source of truth. The on demand reports enable GAWB with visibility and control which will assist with better decision making and proactive asset management.

The project has resulted in an internal “Safety Challenge” award to the GAWB team who submitted the project as a work process initiative by changing the way they do things to manage and remove risks when working in or around concealed infrastructure.

To find out if Mipela’s Works Management solution can meet your business reporting needs please contact Phoebe Tan, Business Development Executive on 1300 807 770.