Tensing announced today that Sydney Water Corporation is more than 50% complete, ahead of expectation, with the roll out of Tensing Mobile GIS. Tensing, a leader in geo and mobile solutions in the utilities industry won the project through a Request for Tender (the Australian version of a Request for Proposal) process. Sydney Water is Australia's largest water utility with over 3,200 staff and an area of operations covering 4,903 square miles (12,700 km2).

“Implementation of Tensing Mobile GIS is part of our overall goal in improving customer service, and worker efficiency, and streamlining all of our mobile processes. The application has contributed greatly to all these goals,” said Greg McCann, Project Director at Sydney Water.

Over 400 mobile workers at Sydney Water will utilize Tensing Mobile GIS in the field to view mapping data, search, redline, locate assets, and trace their network. Additionally the application allows mobile workers to run searches by address, work order number, asset number, UBD reference, and also cross streets.

Sydney Water’s maintenance crews will be able to quickly access their GIS data while performing their daily tasks throughout the pipe network and redline as needed to capture new data. Before the implementation, all changes were marked on paper maps. Now these changes are made electronically in Tensing Mobile GIS, improving data accuracy.

Eric de Rooy, Sydney Water’s General Manager Maintenance said “With more accurate map and document data our maintenance teams, when they get to where the action is, are better informed about the job ahead of them and how to best manage the impact on our customers. They can get immediate information about the assets, where the control/access points are, which customers the asset services, and what to do if there is a problem. They can also mark up any errors they find in the field for correction in the system. With this technology these teams can relay job information back to our headquarters without paper records and can provide details for customer rebates and the like directly. It all adds up to doing the job quicker, more efficiently and with less impact.”

Tensing Mobile GIS is also integrated with Sydney Water’s mobile workforce management system. In the Tensing Mobile GIS application mobile workers can easily navigate to the map area associated with a work order by simply clicking on the work order number.

The mobile GIS project was the result of a larger overall initiative to replace paper processes. Now mobile workers can receive worker orders on their mobile device and have access to the GIS data needed to complete the work order without driving back and forth between depots to retrieve maps and other equipment. Though they do not yet have solid numbers, Sydney Water anticipates significant improvements in worker productivity with the decreasing number of trips made by mobile workers.

“It has been a pleasure working with Sydney Water on this project. The success is indicative of the cooperation from both sides. Sydney Water team members and the Tensing team have worked closely together throughout the last few months to ensure a smooth roll out of Tensing Mobile GIS,” said Alexander Plomp, Director of Client Services at Tensing.

Tensing Mobile GIS is a robust tool that allows field staff to review, analyze and change (or update) existing data in the field. It extends GIS capabilities to crews in the field and gives them access to entire mapping systems on laptop, pen, or tablet computers and PDA’s. Data is provided to the field by extracting data from any corporate GIS database.

About Sydney Water Corporation
Sydney Water delivers essential and sustainable water services for the benefit of the community. Sydney Water provides drinking water, recycled water, wastewater services and some storm water services to more than four million people in Sydney, Illawarra and the Blue Mountains. Drinking water is sourced from a network of dams managed by the Sydney Catchment Authority, then treated and delivered to customers' homes and businesses by Sydney Water. With limited and highly variable rainfall in the catchments, the community can no longer rely on water from the dams. To increase the water supply, Sydney Water is: increasing the amount of water recycled. Water recycling will provide up to 12% of greater Sydney's water needs by 2015;building a desalination plant to provide up to 15% of Sydney's water supply this summer; helping the community and business to use water wisely – water efficiency initiatives will save up to 145 billion litres a year by 2015. That's about 24% of the water supply.