Project Overview
GasOps is a software platform serving the gas utility industry, managing the full lifecycle of field work orders. Field execution teams lacked a reliable, visual way to communicate pipeline layouts, excavation zones, and restoration plans — leading to errors, rework, and safety risk.
Athenaworks partnered with GasOps to build an interactive sketching module directly integrated into the platform, enabling crews to create, edit, and act on visual work order instructions in real time.
Industry
Gas Utility Operations Software
Initial Go-to-
Market Timeline
Tech Stack
Team
Composition
Client Background
GasOps operates in one of the most risk-sensitive industries in infrastructure — gas utility field operations, where execution errors carry real safety consequences. Their platform manages field work orders across distribution, excavation, leak response, and restoration workflows.
Before this project, field teams relied on text-based work order descriptions, static PDFs, and manual sketches. There was no standardized, interactive way to visualize pipeline layouts inside the platform. Instructions were inconsistent, hard to update, and disconnected from the work order record — creating a communication gap the existing system was not built to close.
“Field crews went from interpreting text instructions to executing from a live visual — reducing field clarification requests by an estimated 40–50%.”
The Challenge
GasOps field crews were navigating high-stakes work — pipeline layouts, excavation zones, leak response — with nothing but text descriptions and disconnected static drawings to guide them. No interactive, standardized way to document or communicate spatial execution plans existed inside the work order system.
The gap between what the office communicated and what crews executed was direct and measurable: field clarification requests were frequent, execution errors occurred, rework was common, and documentation was inconsistent.
In gas utility operations, where safety and audit readiness are non-negotiable, this wasn’t a workflow inconvenience — it was operational risk. Previous workarounds — static drawings, PDFs, manual sketches — were non-interactive, hard to update, and not connected to live work order data.
Athenaworks designed and built the Work Order Sketch module as a fully integrated component of the GasOps platform, using GoJS as the core visualization engine. GoJS supports interactive node-and-link diagrams with drag-and-drop palette-based design, built-in zoom, grouping, and data binding — purpose-built for the spatial, domain-specific complexity of gas field operations.
The module supports four distinct sketch types — Distribution, Cut Sheet/Opening, Restoration, and Leak — each with reusable component templates for pipes, fittings, and field elements. Field users build execution plans by dragging components onto a canvas, update them in real time, and move sketches from draft to final submission without leaving the work order.
All sketches are saved via REST APIs to a centralized SQL Server backend, creating a permanent, auditable record linked directly to each work order. Browser local storage minimizes API calls during active editing, keeping large diagrams responsive without compromising data integrity.
Results after launch:
Work Order Sketches are now a core execution component of GasOps — supporting daily field operations, compliance, and documentation across every workflow the platform manages.
