Engineering and Architectural Services just put MSU on the national facilities management map.

The Physical Plant, represented by Planner/Inspector/Analyst II Jade Freeman and his EAS team of Engineer IV Scott Gardner, Planner/Inspector/Analyst III/Supervisor Kathrine Neils, Engineer Aide V Nicholas Voss and Engineering Aide IV Brian Keesey, earned the 2009 Munsys Excellence Award.

The announcement was made in late April.

Munsys is a Florida-based company that uses its products to “assist utilities and government with the management of infrastructure assets,” according to its website.

The award is given to a governmental unit that best meets the “diversity and value exhibited in projects” using “Munsys spatial solutions,” according to an e-mail from Munsys to Freeman. EAS uses Munsys database software to store mapping information in an Oracle Spatial GIS database, keeping a spatial inventory of campus infrastructure.

In 2006, EAS started using Munsys software to manage the growing infrastructure mapping requirements facing EAS. This was a “new way to apply software,” according to University Engineer Bob Nestle. He said Freeman took “quantitative analysis” and applied it to mapping areas of new and imminent construction, developing it into a “very powerful and very valuable tool.”

“Jade is the creative sparkplug behind this,” Nestle said. “He made improvements to the system that surprised even Munsys.”

Freeman said maps maintained by Campus Planning and Administration were incorporated into the mapping system. Since then, Freeman has been able to “manage a large number of features, many of which had not been mapped in the past such as road centerlines.”

Nestle noted that Munsys’s latest features use information from maps and GPS to make better construction predictions and analysis.

“It proves that maps are not just lines on paper: there is something behind it,” Nestle said. “There is intelligence behind the maps.”

Realizing Munsys’s potential beyond EAS’s mapping needs, Freeman helped expand its use throughout the Physical Plant Division.

Landscape Services started using the system in 2008 to map landscape areas (see “Satellite technology assists landscaping plans”), and Telecommunication Systems recently began testing a new Munsys module which will be used to manage the campus’s fiber optic cable network.

Freeman said such uses by Physical Plant departments were key to MSU winning the award because the departments are building on the core EAS use of the software.

In addition to the EAS Munsys team, Freeman credited Assistant Vice President for the Physical Plant Ron Flinn, Landscape Services Manager Gerald Dobbs, Landscape Architect II/Supervisor Adam Lawver, Professional Aide Adam Kingsbury and Planner/Inspector/Analyst III/Supervisors Richard Carroll and Jeff Carpenter for their contribution to earning the Munsys award.

Munsys is not the only one recognizing the EAS team’s innovative uses of the software. Other universities – and fellow users of the Munsys product – are looking to the team for advice and regard MSU as a leader in the realm of facilities management.

Phil Martin, CAD/GIS & document management manager at the University of Colorado at Boulder, commended MSU on its award, noting that Freeman’s demo of MSU’s Munsys uses to Martin’s team “made a big impression on the decision makers here in Facilities Management.”

Martin said Freeman worked with CU-Boulder’s Ilene MacDonald, Geographic Information Systems Specialist, as that university works to create its own GIS program. “I look forward to seeing our campus maps utilizing Munsys like MSU in the near future,” said Martin.

 

May 7, 2009