本文展示了一家公用事业公司如何致力于为供水系统的运行、维护和管理提供一个完全集成的基于计算机的环境。这一过程中最关键的一步是确定与系统集成相关的城市短期和长期目标。在这种情况下，立即实施这种完全集成的系统是不经济的。相反，采取了第一步，满足短期目标，同时为实现城市的长期目标奠定了基础。第一步包括在CAD环境中生成集成的水力模型，同时将所有水力模型和维护信息存储在RDBMS中。这是一个创建信息管理系统的过程，该系统提供有价值的功能来满足短期需求- 长期目标同时可以很容易地整合到一个更大的结构中，以实现长期目标，是健全工程设计的一个重要组成部分。

This paper shows how one utility is working towards a fully-integrated computer-based environment for water distribution system operation, maintenance and management. The most critical step in this process is identifying the city's short-term and long-term goals that are associated with system integration. For this case, it was not economical to immediately implement this fully-integrated system. Rather, a first step was taken which satisfies the short-term goals while laying a foundation for fulfilling the city's long-term goals. This first step consisted of generating an integrated hydraulic model within a CAD environment while storing all hydraulic model and maintenance information within an RDBMS. This procedure of creating an information management system, which provides valuable features to satisfy short-term goals while at the same time may be easily incorporated into a larger structure to fulfill long term goals, is an important component of sound engineering design.