Maui Electric Company, Ltd.

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Project Goal

Maui Electric Company (MECO) serves approximately 65,000 customers by providing electrical power on the three islands that comprise the County of Maui (Maui, Molokai and Lanai). MECO had in place a legacy automated mapping/facilities management (AM/FM) application for its transmission and distribution systems (T & D). The mapping system had minimal support due to limited resources and the company made a decision to restart its mapping efforts through an upgrade of the AM/FM application. Because of the complexity of the legacy system, the single-person GIS department proposed that an alternative mapping solution be implemented.

After testing several geospatial programs, ESRI’s ArcGIS platform was selected to be the base of MECO’s mapping system. With this change in direction, MECO saw the opportunity to expand the use of a mapping application beyond its current AM/FM system. The enterprise GIS will provide MECO with a valuable tool that would benefit various areas of operations.

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Business Problem Solved

For most of 2006, MECO used ArcEditor 9.1 to consolidate various sources of data to create the base maps for its GIS system. As development continued, the engineering department recognized the value of GIS visualizations. Even in the early stages of implementation, the GIS department was able to create quality maps that allowed Maui Electric to solve system problems quickly and efficiently.

Recognizing the limitations of hard-copy deliverables, the GIS staff determined that electronic distribution of the maps could offer an alternative method for sharing the geospatial data. The release of ArcGIS 9.2 piqued MECO’s interest in ESRI’s new offerings. “We viewed several online demonstrations of ArcGIS Server 9.2 and were impressed with the relative ease in setting up a web-based GIS mapping application.” says Eric Abe, GIS Administrator, “This project has created an easy-to-use intranet web application that gives our company quick access to information on our mapped assets.”

Technology Implemented

Utilizing the ArcEditor 9.2 desktop platform, the T & D system mapping application was developed on a Microsoft Windows server running ArcGIS Server 9.2 Standard Workgroup. During the implementation, MECO’s GIS staff relied on readily accessible information found on the internet (shapefiles, imagery, data models, etc.) and the support of ESRI’s technical staff (phone support, knowledge base, forums, etc.). The GIS staff also used basic knowledge of Microsoft Windows server operating systems, Microsoft IIS, Microsoft SQL Server, and ASP web page design in the completion of this phase of the development.

Development Team Biography

Eric Abe is Maui Electric Company’s GIS Administrator. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Hawaii-Manoa. Eric has professional experience in aerospace design, CAD operations and support, PC computer systems and networking support, Microsoft Windows application development, and Web application development.