What comes to mind when you hear the word, campus? You may immediately think of winding, tree-covered paths full of students meandering through the quad on a bright fall afternoon – the setting of a university, college, or school. But business parks, health profession complexes, and industrial sites are considered campuses too. In fact, any collection of grouped facilities managed by a single entity can be considered a campus. It can be located at a single site or an assortment of sites around the world.

1. Concepts
Fishbeck, Thompson, Carr & Huber, Inc.
Summer 2013
onceptsC
Let’s try a word association exercise:
What comes to mind when you hear the word,
campus? You may immediately think of winding,
tree-covered paths full of students meandering
through the quad on a bright fall afternoon – the
setting of a university, college, or school. But
business parks, health profession complexes, and
industrial sites are considered campuses too. In
fact, any collection of grouped facilities managed
by a single entity can be considered a campus. It
can be located at a single site or an
assortment of sites around the world.
Campuses with a physical presence
share one commonality: they are
environments in geographic space
made up of buildings and their
supporting infrastructure – collectively known as
assets. The assets on a campus are similar to those
found in a small city. And just like cities, campuses
require a steward – a person or team to manage,
plan, and maintain them. This management team
oversees a variety of assets at multiple scales,
from big picture planning to accommodate growth,
changing business practices, and technology, to the
more detailed planning required to maintain the
current systems on a daily basis. From the macro
to the micro, one tool is ideally suited to help
campus facilities managers do their job: geographic
information systems, or GIS.
Ask campus facilities managers what keeps them
up at night and you may hear, “I need to know
what assets we have and where they are located,
understand key information about them, and
GIS: THE APP FOR CAMPUS MANAGEMENT
be able to quickly access more detailed record
documents with confidence.” Until recently,
this was accomplished within a paper-driven
paradigm; think coffee-stained blueprints and
color-coded spreadsheets. But using paper for data
storage and retrieval is inefficient and hinders a
manager’s ability to seamlessly access information
and incorporate it across multiple facilities and
infrastructure systems.
What paper hinders, GIS makes
possible. In GIS, the facilities
manager has a system to record
and track all campus assets, so
they can be dealt with immediately
in case of emergency or provide
information for more detailed
studies of a particular system. GIS helps the
campus facilities manager understand campus
geography and make informed decisions through
its extraordinary spatial visualization and analytical
tools. Using GIS, a facilities manager can, for
example, understand where the campus’s steam
and condensate return lines run, recognize where
fiber optic and telephone lines are buried, and
identify the location of storm and sanitary sewers
in a single software application. GIS can be used
collaboratively with other mapping tools, such as
CAD and BIM, to make them more effective.
Not only do campus managers have to oversee
many types of facility and utility information, they
also must employ sound capital improvement
planning strategies to maintain and develop their
assets. The days of waiting for a problem to occur
“I need to know what
assets we have and
where they are located,
understand key information
about them...”
GIS graphic by ESRI ArcGIS©

2. www.ftch.com/concepts
For more information regarding GIS mapping,
please contact Michelle C. Lazar, P.E., GISP
mclazar@ftch.com
before repairing or replacing assets are fading
fast. Campus managers must be responsible
system directors and spend funds wisely to
ensure their systems work efficiently.
When we look at what is possible with GIS, we
can begin to appreciate its full potential as an
asset management tool; specifically, its ability
to analyze spatial relationships. GIS defines
an asset’s geospatial location in relation to
other assets in proximity. In other words, GIS
uncovers the interaction between, let’s say, a
particular building and all the other identified
objects in the natural and built environment.
Information being tracked in GIS may include
location, size, material, age, condition,
capacity, daily maintenance, and deferred
maintenance – all important components of
an asset management system. Once confident
in the data, campus managers use it as a
reliable source for planning. And because
assets have a defined location, information
about its environment can also be imported
into the GIS, e.g., soil permeability, land cover,
wetlands, flood plain, and topography. This
additional insight might affect an asset’s life
cycle and, in turn, its criticality score. Critical
locations can also be flagged that affect off-
campus services, such as the potential impact
of asset failure on a nearby hospital or major
transportation system.
So if a campus is like a city, what tools are
cities using for GIS and asset management?
ESRI ArcGIS© (www.esri.com) is a major GIS
software provider for mapping and analyzing
information on infrastructure assets. The
ArcGIS local government data model was
initially implemented for managing water
distribution/wastewater collection systems.
Recently, it was expanded and released as
a campus data model that includes streets,
sidewalks, trees, parking, and buildings. These
models serve as a framework for building
systems in a format supported by ESRI and its
user community.
GIS provides the facilities manager with
an organizational tool to store, display,
and analyze information on many campus
services in a single platform. It presents
different spheres of knowledge in a spatially
relational database, increasing information
access and enabling collaboration among key
stakeholders. This capability allows campus
managers to confidently determine strategies
that optimize the performance and planned
development of their campus assets.
“...GIS uncovers the interaction between a
particular building and all the other identified
objects in the natural and built environment.”
Building Condition Assessment
Campus Utility Map Layers
Sewer Condition Rating