GIS in Business Processes  Angela Ionita Senior Researcher Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Romanian Academy Romania Email: aionita@racai.ro Marcel Foca Director of Intergraph Computer Services, Romania Marius Ienculecu-Popovici Consultant for Solutions in Public Administration Intergraph Computer Services, Romania Abstract Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are becoming a part of mainstream business and management operations around the world in organizations as diverse as cities, state government, utilities, telecommunications, railroads, civil engineering, petroleum exploration, retailing, etc. in private and public sectors. This array of institutional types is integrating GIS into their daily operations, and the applications associated with these systems are equally broad from infrastructure management, to vehicle routing, to site selection, to research and analysis. This paper presents a point of view regarding the place and the importance of GIS in Business Processes, with a few simple examples and mentioning the most important trends in our point of view: extending business intelligence with geographic information systems. The framework proposed in this paper refers the process of collecting and creating knowledge within the organization such as Intelligent Community, represented here by City Hall. The application area used in our examples represents a good example of the organisations, which exhibits the characteristics of a modern organisation. Work performed in these organisations requires knowledge sharing, reuse, exploration and reflection. Preliminary results indicate the utility of the proposed framework, as well as opportunities for further development, including its suitability for generalisation to other areas. In the last part of this paper are presented the trends in the evolution of GIS, Business Processes and Business Intelligence and some conclusions. Much Geographical Information (GI) data already exists, most often collected by public organizations in the framework of their mandated management activities, focused on the needs of GI users and potential users, better understand and demonstrate the potential of multimedia GI content for economic development and for the improvement of commercial and public services to the citizen. Many of these organizations are beginning to explore the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in their decision making processes by generating maps that convey information gleaned from their respective databases. Spatial display and analysis will be important in many workflow scenarios. Over the last decade we have confronted with a lot of examples of GIS applications that have produced useful spatial data products for different organisations from public to private sectors. The applications have clearly been beneficial but most of organisations are still facing with the challenges of implementing applications of GIS technology, as suggested by on-going popularity of „enterprise GIS”, „GIS data sharing”, „multipurpose GIS”, „multi-participant GIS” terms. In this context, the GIS world is confronted with three major problems:
Business Processes A lot of different procedures for identification and improving business processes have been developed and tried by businesses with varying degrees of success. Some of the most notable earlier procedures include Porter’s Value Chain and Total Quality Management (TQM), which were used during the 1980s. Business Process Reengineering was popular during the 1990 decade. The 1990s also saw the emergence of the Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) package software systems most of these procedures are actively evolving. For example, TQM is being replaced with Six Sigma methodology; Business Process Reengineering is evolving into Business Process Redesign [4]. Other processes such as Continuous Quality Improvements, Management by Objective, Management by Walking Around, Customer Focus Management have also emerged [8]. The use of information and communications technology and Business Process management is becoming a core competency that every business must have in order to function in today’s global and highly competitive business environment. All of the various business process improvement procedures are merging into the single discipline of Business Process Management. In [2] is presented a useful list of four major business processes including: business process improvements, business process reengineering, technology transfer, and process standardization. Harmon [4] completed a similar list, which include the following three processes: improvement process, process redesign, process reengineering. In today’s world, business is acquiring the new information management technology through the purchase of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions. GIS solutions are part of COTS solutions because in business areas, it is not affordable to develop and maintain custom software that closely matches their business processes and requirements. The COTS solution is then configured or tailored to match, as closely is possible, the existing business processes. But a perfect match is not possible and adjustments must be made. Developing custom software models or application to be used with/in a COTS solution to accommodate the existing business processes is a dangerous approach that often leads to time consuming and additional cost and there is no guarantee that custom modules and/or application will work with COTS. Adjusting business processes and practices to match the capabilities and functions of the new technology is a much more reasonable approach. Developing more efficient business processes is often the best way to reduce costs and improve efficiency. Developing workflow to provide information and data to the users when they need it can avoid time spent looking for the information or waiting for the information to arrive. Most of the major COTS evolving GIS solutions incorporate industry accepted best practices and implementing these practices as part of the COTS implementation could provide additional efficiencies. In actual practices most businesses use a combination of custom application and business process modification to implement a new COTS solution. Although GIS is often viewed as a technology project and an arena for the technically sophisticated computer professional, the development of a successful enterprise GIS is dependent more on proper management participation and supervision than on technical solutions.
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