ACADEMIA

ESRI announced today that Khatib & Alami, its distributor in Lebanon and Oman and a utility solutions provider, was recently awarded an enterprise geographic information system (GIS) project for the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The project started on September 19, 2005, and the implementation is expected to last more than two years. Khatib & Alami will be working closely with the Bahraini MEW on the enterprise GIS project, targeting the establishment of a more advanced, complete information system that should facilitate the daily work in the ministry. To continue to maintain a prompt customer support system for its clients, the ministry realized it needed to build a new GIS infrastructure along with several new applications. The applications will be interfaced with the existing Oracle-based business applications, and the new infrastructure will be built using ESRI's GIS platform and Miner & Miner's ArcFM. This implementation will facilitate the timely and accurate capture, documentation, and distribution of network asset information to the entire MEW workforce. Comments Faisal Alami, GIS services division director at Khatib & Alami, "The project will unify all spatial and land data for the entire kingdom. Most important, the emerging information system will increase the efficiency of the ministry's customer service in a seamless environment that simulates the real world of both the water and electric utilities, meet competitive challenges, and achieve key performance indicators established by key stakeholders."