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Geographic Information Systems, or GIS, might seem like high technology, but its benefits are human. That’s because when organizations can visualize geographic data, it makes everyone’s job easier.
The basic benefits are easy enough to catalog. GIS enables organizations to build a database of geographically referenced information and then analyze that information. It is visual, electronic and easy for most people to understand.
These kinds of benefits, however, are limited to specific use-cases for GIS for individuals. What happens on an organizational level when GIS technologies are adopted? How does it make people’s lives easier?
There are lots of answers to that question, but we want to highlight three.
GIS gives you real time accessible information.
In the not-so-distant past, if you worked for a water utility, chances are you kept your records in a big coffee-stained notebook that you filled up by hand year after year.
Need to look up a specific hydrant? Need to figure out which water lines might need to be replaced? Consult the notebook.
Using the notebook came with plenty of drawbacks. First, someone had to go out and collect the data in the field. Then, you had to catalog it all by hand. Finally, when you were ready to reference it later, you had to take the time to look it up and try to make sense of it all. If you had to compare two sets of data, you were flipping around to at least two different tables.
While this manual process might have its own nostalgic allure, it pales in comparison to an electronic GIS system, which allows you to digitally access all the info you need in real time. GIS is superior for a few reasons.
First, it can help to save time so you can make decisions more efficiently. That is not just because it is easier to look things up. It is because the data you look up is so much richer.
Let’s go back to the example of water lines. Imagine you are tasked with maintaining all of your municipality’s water lines and you want to be proactive and intelligent about where you start.
Without a GIS system, you are stuck poring through a notebook, trying to identify where the municipality had issues in the past.
With a GIS system, all you need to do is type in your search criteria and voila—every water line that had a break in the past five years pops up. Since the people in the field can update data on the spot using mobile devices, you know this information is as up-to-date as possible. Additionally, those water lines are displayed on a map so you can easily identify clusters of problems and schedule maintenance accordingly.
This example illustrates how the real time, easily accessible data made visual by a GIS system enables workers at every level of an organization to make smarter, more informed decisions in a more efficient way, and everyone benefits because of it.
We already talked about the drawbacks inherent to a municipality keeping records solely in notebooks. Sometimes, though, the most crucial information needed for running an organization is not written down on paper; it is locked inside the employees’ heads.
Institutional memory is equal parts blessing and liability when you are running a municipality. On the plus side, it means your most vital employees have gotten so good at their jobs that they have internalized all the crucial wisdom necessary to be really, truly effective.
On the contrary, these employees will eventually leave or retire, taking all their hard-earned knowledge with them. There is no silver bullet for this problem, but in its own particular way, employing GIS technology can help.
Consider the problem in more detail. The most valuable information captured by institutional memory is complex. Any new employee can learn and re-learn basic facts. True wisdom, however, comes from understanding the relationships between this information and the processes that surround it. That is much harder to capture.
GIS, fortunately, is all about capturing and communicating relationships between entities—specifically entities matched to a location. That quality makes GIS well-suited for capturing and preserving certain types of institutional memory.
Ron Ashkenas, writing for the Harvard Business Review, identifies three key strategies for preserving institutional memory. The first two—“build an explicit strategy” and “identify a few key things that you want every member of your team to know”—are good tips for any organization.
The third, “use technology,” describes GIS’s role perfectly.
“Use technology,” Ashkenas writes, “to create a process by which your team continually captures and curates institutional knowledge — to make it a living and evolving body of useful information that is accessible to people as they come into the organization.”
GIS does just that.
By using GIS in day-to-day operations, you are automatically logging new information; the database is always evolving. In addition to the previously mentioned benefits GIS provides, it also enables organizations to easily generate a database that newcomers can access, study and understand. That way, when your oldest and wisest employees walk out the door, you can carry on more effectively.
Transparency is vital for running an effective, honest and accountable organization, but is more difficult than you might think. That is because true transparency is about more than just making information available to people involved with a project. It is about making sure they understand the information.
GIS is an effective tool of transparency because it makes understanding so easy and intuitive. By visualizing data and enabling people to analyze and 
manipulate it on their own, GIS lays the foundation for more nuanced and informed conclusions.
Internal to an organization, this type of transparency often takes the form of “seeing the big picture.”
Say you are an employee at a municipality working on a big infrastructure project. You are working with a team of internal decision makers as well as a team of external engineers, and you need to make sure everyone can effectively collaborate.
You could call constant meetings, enforce hard deadlines and require everyone involved to regularly report on what they are doing. While these are not bad ideas, they can easily become inefficient because they require people to drop what they are doing and expend effort translating their knowledge for the team at large.
GIS can help to reduce some of this stress. When everyone on the team is using the same tool to interpret the same data in real time, and they can interpret it visually, it is much easier for all involved to grasp the big picture.
Similarly, public-facing GIS tools can help ordinary citizens understand how their tax dollars are being spent.
Say you are kicking off that same big infrastructure project. To publicize it, someone from the local government holds a press conference describing exactly what they hope to achieve. An article goes out in the local paper detailing the cost to the public. An ordinary citizen sees all this, knows their taxes are going toward all sorts of local improvements and then what? At best, they probably get stuck in slow traffic because they have to drive around a work crew; at worst, they witness no visible improvement at all.
Engaged citizens get miffed, and all of a sudden your phones are ringing off the hook? Where is all this money going? Why is there a work crew clogging up Main Street? Inquiring minds want to know, but trying to explain to them in the heat of the moment might not do much good.
In this case, a public-facing GIS application on your municipality’s website could answer these questions for you in a much more comprehensive fashion. Citizens can browse, view and analyze data about the project on their own, getting a sense for the full scope and progress of what you are doing.
You might still get a few angry phone calls here and there, but the transparency afforded by GIS could help cut those calls significantly.
When it is easier for people to grasp the big picture, get a handle on the relationship between disparate pieces of information and make informed decisions, their lives (and their jobs) become easier. That is exactly what GIS does. Used properly, it strengthens the understanding of everyone that a project touches, from the workers in the field to the public.
Written by: Heather Lewis, GIS Analyst
This will be the first in a series of articles discussing some of the more recent energy improvement methods available to data center operators. The series is meant to provide the reader with fact based information. It is meant to provide the operators with a basic understanding of the energy conservation measures and where they can be applied.
There is an interesting statistic that roughly 75% of existing data centers with under 15,000 square feet of white space never had energy conservations measures performed. In a recent presentation, I asked the audience how many of them implemented any energy savings measures in their facilities. Only two or three of a relatively large audience raised their hands. I then asked how many of the operators who did not raise their hands have corporate energy savings policies. About half of the audience raised their hands. When I asked a couple of participants what the reasons were for not implementing energy savings measures, they mainly talked about fear of disruption and downtime. It really came down to risk tolerance.
Let’s face it. We can talk about UTI tiering and the fact that uptime has percentages associated with it, but the “C” suite executives have an expectation of 100% uptime. Whether or not that is realistic does not matter much and this pressure to maintain uptime is pushed down to the operators. This makes operators a very conservative bunch.
Over the course of the last 10 or so years, there have been a number of advancements in mechanical and electrical technology that can provide significant data center energy savings. Many of these advancements are applicable to both new and existing installations, and are proven to be reliable through hours of real world operation. A number of them can be implemented in existing facilities with little or no disruption to operations and provide real energy savings. This is important whether you are operating a corporate data center where there is an energy policy in place, or colocation facilities where saving energy can make you more competitive in the market place.
Over the course of this series we will discuss energy saving methods from the simplest, to those that require more detailed investigation to determine applicability and capital expenditure to execute. So let’s begin with the simplest.
When I began designing data centers almost 30 years ago, there was really just one way to design a data center. Sure there were variants, but the vast majority of data centers were designed with some sort of raised floor and perimeter computer room air conditioners (CRAC’s). Because of computer room equipment manufacturers’ requirements, data centers were kept around 68°F and 50% relative humidity (RH). These conditions were thought to provide the computer equipment with a cool and stable operating environment. As late as 1999, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Condition Engineers (ASHRAE) was still stipulating a design standard of 72°F +/- 2°F and 50% RH +/- 5%.
In the early 2000s, ASHRAE empaneled a technical committee whose goal was to establish new guidelines for cooling data centers. The committee included representatives from cooling system manufacturers, the HVAC engineering community, data center operators and most importantly, the computer equipment manufacturers. They were involved because it was generally recognized that computer equipment manufacturers published operating condition requirements that limited how much an operator could change the conditions in the white space. It was felt that modern chip and circuit board manufacturers provided a product that could withstand a much broader range of temperature and humidity conditions. This thinking was bolstered, in part, by the broad range of conditions under which personal computers and process controllers were able to operate.
After a great deal of lab and field testing, ASHRAE published a Technical Committee (TC 9.9 – 2008) Standard in 2008. It was subsequently incorporated into the ASHRAE Applications Manual in 2011. That standard re-established the design conditions for data center white space. Under that standard the typical data center can operate from 65°F – 80°F and from 20% RH to 80% RH, so long as the conditions are relatively stable. To emphasize the need for stability, they limited the rate of change of space conditions to 3.5°F/hour and 5% RH/hour. Due to code requirements, new data centers are now designed to these conditions.
I cannot tell you how many data center operators have looked at me like I have a third eye when I tell them they ought to raise the temperature in their data center—but the results are real. For a typical data center, each degree the space temperature is raised, the HVAC system will use 2 – 5% less energy. The reality is that if your operators are able to work comfortably in the space, so can your computer equipment. Below are two real world examples of the implementation of changing space conditions.
Example A:
One of my clients is a large U.S. based financial institution. They had been operating in raised floor, 68°F conditions for as long as I had been working with them and their deployment included some legacy equipment. Their lead facilities operator had long thought the space temperature was too low and could be raised, but had no data on which to base his assumption. Shortly after TC 9.9 – 2008 was published, he decided to approach their CIO with the notion of raising the space temperature but was quickly shot down. Not one to be deterred, he came up with a scheme where he would raise the temperature in the data center ½ a degree F every month until he reached 75°F. This went on for months. No one noticed or became alarmed, and there were no over temperature alarms from their computer equipment.
One day the CIO happened to be going through the data center and noticed one of the CRAC displays was left on and indicating 74.5°F. Alarmed, he quickly went to the facility gentleman’s office and asked what was wrong with the with HVAC system. The facilities operator informed him there was no problem and the system had been operating that way for months without issue. They ultimately came to an agreement, and for a number of reasons, settled on 75°F as their operating set point.
Example B
Another of my clients is a major international Internet Service Provider (ISP). Their corporate philosophy is to be as environmentally friendly as possible. In addition, any energy cost savings contributes to their bottom line so they are extremely aggressive when it comes to energy savings. They mostly utilize traditional “off the shelf” servers and other computer equipment so there is nothing special about what they deployed. Their summertime data center set point is 80°F but it has been known to drift up to 85°F on high load days. They rarely see temperature alarms.
As part of their standard procedures the ISP performs failure analyses. When alarms and/or failures have occurred, they found the issue was not heat related, but an issue with the manufacturing of the device. In all cases, this has been verified by the device manufacturer.
Of all the energy conservation methods, the simplest is to raise your data center temperature. As demonstrated in the examples above, modern computer equipment is more than capable of handling a broad range of operating conditions. The reality is that if your operators are comfortable in the space, your computer equipment will run just fine. The biggest benefit of simply raising your space temperature is that it comes with no capital cost so your payback is instantaneous.
The next article in the series will focus on what can be done within the white space to provide energy savings. It will primarily look at containment and some other simple energy conservation measures that can be implemented to save money.
Written by: Raymond (Ray) F. Johnson II, PE, Senior Associate Principal
Turnkey projects, such as energy performance or design-build contracts, are often used because they expedite the design and construction process. Often times, to achieve an accelerated schedule, an owner is locked into a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) upfront resulting in little or no control over the details of the project. Those in the construction industry know the saying “the devil is in the details” is more than a saying—it’s real life. The details of a project are can be the biggest opportunity for high value and conversely they can be the cause of the most disappointment.
A stepped delivery process provides the owner continued control over the scope, as well as the cost. Do not pay too much for a project! Hold off on the GMP until the design is sufficiently developed. If the project does not look like you thought it would, or costs more than you expected, you can still walk away.
Stage your project in three basic milestone steps: (1) study phase, (2) design phase and (3) construction phase. At the time of the RFP request a lump sum cost for the study and a percentage fee on top of labor and material for the design and construction phase fees. This way you can execute contracts progressively at each phase that only authorize work for that phase. As a result, you retain control over the costs, scope and quality of your project since the decision to move forward to the next step rests solely on you as the owner.
The following schedule related language can be incorporated into your RFP to help ensure this approach is taken for your project.
As an owner, you should never have to relinquish control over your project. By employing a stepped approach, you can evaluate and decide at the end of each phase if you want to proceed to the next. Just remember the three milestones: (1) study phase, (2) design phase and (3) construction phase. Ball in your court.
Written by: Jason Denue, PE, REP, Associate Principal
Turnkey project delivery models (i.e., energy performance and design-build contracts) are becoming more and more common in today’s commercial construction industry. These delivery models simplify the construction process by having one company responsible for both the design and construction. This streamlined delivery process is necessary to meet tight deadlines with limited resources. However, the owner tends to lose control over the project scope and cost. In the end your c-suite may be wondering “did we get the best value?”
Thankfully, there is something you can do to ensure you are getting the best value. You just have to incorporate requirements upfront during the request for proposal process. There are three key requirements you should include in your RFP that will ensure you end up with a transparent turnkey project. The images below are snippets from an existing RFP that you can replicate in your next RFP to maximize your turnkey contract.
This starts with a stepped delivery process. Often times many ESCOs or design-builders offer a guaranteed max price (GMP) early on in the project. While this is great from a budgeting prospective, this actually transfers control of the scope and cost from you to the contractor. This limits your ability to audit, assess options and manage costs. A better alternative is to establish the GMP following the design step.
Make sure your RFP introduces transparency through competition. How do you know your contractor is getting you the best price? Have the contractor require at least three quotes for all scope of work items. This will validate you are getting the best value. Employing competition will also drive down the cost of construction.
Now it is time to build. Things are going to change throughout the project, this happens. How can you make sure you’re still getting the best value? The answer is open book project accounting, which requires the contractor to disclose all subcontractor costs and mark-ups. Pay applications should include all invoices and subcontractor schedules of values. A reserve fund is typically established to cover any issues during construction. The use of this reserve fund is fully disclosed to the owner. At the end of the project, any money remaining in the reserve fund will be turned over to the owner at project close out.
Written by: Jason Denue, PE, REP, Associate Principal