KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The legacy system, 'The Vault', was a cybersecurity risk – due to its underlying architecture relying on unsupported technology – as well as an increasing business risk, due to the load being placed on their GIS infrastructure, and lack of accessibility to engineering information.
- Discrepancies in metadata and the requirement of physical presence for document access were impacting the efficiency of operations.
- SPU needed a robust, modern EDMS that could seamlessly integrate with their GIS environment.
- The decision SPU made prior to the COVID-19 pandemic - the need for a cloud-based, externally accessible system that did not expose SPU servers to the public – was validated immediately as their working environment changed in early 2020.
THE COMPANY
Seattle is home to over 750,000 people and spread across 142 square miles in Washington state, Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) is tasked with preserving a sustainable and livable environment for the city's inhabitants. This critical role involves managing clean drinking water, waste disposal, sewer, and drainage systems.
SPU had been grappling with an outdated custom system for managing their engineering drawings and documents known as 'The Vault'. An internal solution built in the 1990s, the Vault was, as Geoff Brown, supervisor of SPU's engineering records explains, an interface for their digitized collection of engineering records, that spanned back to 1885. However, as the Vault aged, SPU found that it had become inflexible and slow with discrepancies in metadata affecting daily operations, and increasing cybersecurity concerns.
Moreover, as an on-premises solution hosted on internal infrastructure, the system was failing to meet SPU and its people’s users, requiring anyone needing access to records, be they members of the public, private consultants, surveyors, or even curious homeowners, to physically visit the Seattle Municipal Tower and use a public terminal.
This led SPU to seek a new, robust Engineering Drawing Management System (EDMS) that could seamlessly integrate with their Geographic Information Systems (GIS) environment.
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