Challenge

Faced with the PHMSA requirement to identify Moderate Consequence Areas (MCA) along their pipeline corridors by July 1, 2020, operators looked to their GIS to provide necessary functionality. In 2019, a major US utility decided to extend the High Consequence Area (HCA) functionality in their existing 4.3 version of GE Smallworld’s Global Transmission Office (GTO) to include MCA generation.

Solution

The customer approached GEOMAGIC Utility Solutions to modify its existing versions of GTO and GEOMAGIC’s Trascue pipeline integrity application for risk ranking to handle MCAs.
While the latest version 5.2 of GTO provided MCA functionality out-of-the-box, the utility company did not have the appetite to undergo and full upgrade project at the time. GEOMAGIC Utility Solutions quickly and efficiently added the MCA functionality to the utility’s implementation of GTO version 4.3. Additionally, GEOMAGIC configured GTO’s Pipeline Integrity Data Manager (PIDM) to include the newly generated MCAs. GEOMAGIC also made the necessary modifications to the customer’s risk model and algorithm in Trascue (GEOMAGIC’s risk application) to include MCAs.

Results

GEOMAGIC Utility Solutions delivered the required MCA generation capabilities on time and within budget. This quick response allowed GEOMAGIC’s customers to perform the required MCA analysis on time. These MCAs were then exported to Trascue to be included in the utility’s next risk ranking.