LONDON, Esri Canada User Conference – April 1, 2014 –Esri Canada today presented the Region of Waterloo with an Award of Excellence for leveraging Esri technology to implement a GIS platform that improves collaboration within and across departments, makes staff more efficient and productive, and enhances customer service.  By consolidating various organizational functions onto a centralized enterprise platform, the Region has made it possible to develop innovative mapping applications to support their strategic priorities.

“Adopting the Esri GIS platform has allowed us to share the technology across various arms of our organization.  It’s available to hundreds of staff and provides a consistent look and feel while supporting multiple configurations to meet numerous business needs,” said Jeff Ham, Manager GIS and Corporate Solutions at the Region of Waterloo. “The platform architecture provides a wide range of possibilities to create new applications that can improve employee workflows and engage the public. We’ve been able to take fragmented GIS data and quickly develop applications that serve the needs of our staff and citizens alike.”

Since 2012, the Region of Waterloo has developed tools to solve many business problems such as: optimizing public health inspection routes, balancing field staff workloads based on geographic location and augmenting critical information for emergency response.  Specifically, GIS applications have been developed for the Region of Waterloo International Airport (YKF) to better manage asset maintenance by more accurately locating and reporting work orders. The Historic Countryside Tours app finds quickest routes and historical points of interest along each route to promote tourism.  The Children’s Services department can now view locations more easily to plan programs and anticipate additional service needs. Finally, their Web site provides several interactive maps for public use including guides, projects and directions to various Regional buildings.

“With municipal governments under increasing pressure to provide quality services, and manage shrinking budgets with greater efficiency, the Region of Waterloo has demonstrated that being better, faster and fiscally prudent are not mutually exclusive goals,” noted Alex Miller, president, Esri Canada.   “By leveraging GIS as a platform to expand the use of shared information and improve processes, they’ve empowered both internal and external stakeholders to get the maps and answers they need.”

The Region of Waterloo continues to invest in GIS technology and plans to develop more tools in the near future to assist with illegal dumping and environmental enforcement, bus stop management, housing inventory, township Web sites and mobile apps that support and field data collection and asset management.

About Region of Waterloo

The Regional Municipality of Waterloo provides more than 60 per cent of municipal services to a growing population of 550,000 people. The Region is committed to creating an inclusive, thriving and sustainable community through innovative leadership and a range of services such as: public health, social services, planning, heritage, water supply, regional roads, waste management, ambulance service, rural libraries, public transit, community housing, emergency planning, Provincial Offences Courts and airport services. More information can be found on our website at regionofwaterloo.ca

Follow the Region of Waterloo on Twitter and Facebook.

About Esri Canada
Founded in 1984, Esri Canada provides enterprise geographic information system (GIS) solutions that empower businesses, governments and educational institutions to make timely, informed and mission-critical decisions by leveraging the power of geography.  The company distributes the world's leading GIS software from Esri, Schneider Electric, Cityworks – Azteca Systems, Inc. and other technology partners.  Headquartered in Toronto, the company serves over 10,000 customers from 16 regional offices across Canada.  Esri Canada has joined the elite rank of Canada’s Best Managed companies and has been named to the Branham300.  Information about the company can be found at esri.ca. Follow Esri Canada on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. 

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