Supporting Asset Management with GIS and Business Intelligence Technologies: The Case Study of the University of Turin

Abstract

Despite the promising outcomes achieved over time in Asset Management, data accessibility, correlation, analysis, and visualization still represent challenges. The integration, readability, and interpretation of heterogeneous information by different stakeholders is a further concern, especially at the urban scale, where spatial data integration is required to correlate virtual information with the real world. The Geographic Information System (GIS) allows these connections, representing and digitizing extensive areas with significant benefits for asset analysis, management, and decision-making processes. Such benefits are central for managing large and widespread university campuses as they are comparable to small cities, covering a wide urban region and including resources highly integrated into the urban context. The paper presents how GIS integrated into Business Intelligence (BI) tools can support university Asset Management System (AMS) creation for the optimal use of resources, illustrating the University of Turin case study. The results discussion considers the relationship between the different elements of the assets and their synergy with the city. It focuses on four themes, dealing with the asset identification of buildings and resources, especially the educational ones, asset spatiotemporal evolution, and buildings’ distances for proximity analysis. The benefits achievable through the AMS, related challenges, and possible future developments are highlighted.