Henrico County Adopts Geo-Centric IT Policy

08 December 2009, 8:53pm

Redlands, California — December 8, 2009 — Henrico County, Virginia, recently adopted an IT policy that requires new enterprise systems to be geographic information system (GIS)-centric. To support this policy, which aims to integrate business systems via GIS, the county obtained an ESRI enterprise license agreement (ELA) that provides unlimited amounts of ArcGIS software.

"GIS is an integral enterprise business system and the infrastructure asset management system," said Juston Manville, GIS coordinator, Henrico County. "With a GIS-centric approach to system integration, GIS becomes a shared service throughout the enterprise that enables stronger collaboration among agencies and consistency."

Most business systems, including billing, meter reading, permitting, work orders, and customer relationship management, are location based. With GIS, Henrico County can centralize data storage and management and integrate disparate systems to improve communication, minimize redundancy, enhance accuracy, and ultimately improve service delivery. It also gives decision makers access to the best and most timely information and enables a common operating picture view of the organization.

Though staff members throughout the county will be better able to visualize their data and convey complex ideas in an easy-to-understand way, Manville points out that understanding spatial relationships and better managing information are what matters most. "It's not about the map," he said. "It's about all the analysis and data sharing and data storage behind it."

ESRI

Geo: International