GIS solution provider AfriGIS has won a tender to develop a maintenance management system for freight logistics company Spoornet, a division of Transnet. Infrastructure maintenance engineers, technical staff and personnel that maintain Spoornet's large infrastructure asset base which includes the rail infrastructure, will use the system.

"The first phase of the project was implemented in January this year," says AfriGIS Director Johann van der Westhuizen. "It includes a linear viewer of rail-based infrastructure asset information, integration into the Spoornet SAP PM R/3 system for obtaining work-related information and integration of information from geometry condition measurement and ultrasonic condition measurement vehicles.

"The condition measurement vehicle is equipped with high-tech measuring devices like GPS and laser and records the geometry condition of the track, overhead contact wire parameters and rail profile and wear at a speed of 90 km/h. The ultrasonic measuring vehicle detects rail flaws using ultrasound. The product will run on Oracle 8i, utilising the Spatial Objects software.

"AfriGIS' in-depth knowledge base of the Oracle platform, together with their understanding of infrastructure management systems makes them the ideal solution provider for this project," says Speek Venter, Senior Engineer, Infrastructure at Spoornet.

More about the system

The main objectives of infrastructure applied maintenance management system (IAMMS) are to provide information that is complete, updated and valid and in the required format in order to:

* Ensure that assets are at an appropriate service level within a required level of reliability.

* Ensure economic and productive maintenance input.

* Minimise disruptions of train operations as a result of less and more effective maintenance work.

* Ensure increased availability of assets to increase transport capacity.

* Ensure that maintenance service is rendered in a safe and responsible manner.

The main component of IAMMS is the database. The IAMMS database is a powerful relational database based on MIA (managing infrastructure application) that will integrate asset, work history and condition data based on location referencing information. The features built into IAMMS are as follows:

* Importing of infrastructure asset inventory data, condition information and work history data from existing databases or manually through a manual asset-capturing tool. This data is imported into the main IAMMS database.

* Asset matching tool to integrate asset information from the various sources into a relational database referenced by asset location.

* Displaying of infrastructure data in a graphical view with condition, maintenance and operational information relating to the infrastructure asset.

* Efficient and user-definable reporting on asset information.

* Exporting of asset information in a user-definable format for analysis purposes.

AfriGIS

(012) 362 3114

lydette@afrigis.co.za

www.afrigis.co.za