The Azienda Energetica Municipale (AEM) Cremona utility company is owned by the municipality of Cremona, Italy—a pleasant city in the north of Italy, ninety kilometers from Milan. AEM Cremona provides electric, gas, water, wastewater, and district heating services, along with public lighting, road signals, and traffic lights.

Roughly 50 percent of Cremona is classified as an archeological zone, which means special care is needed when  excavation or construction work is performed within its boundaries. As a result, the utility must keep extremely accurate documentation of its networks to facilitate maintenance activities. At the same time, it is critical that network information be accessible at all levels of the organization to facilitate proper decision making.