July 15, 2009
San Diego, California—The NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) GIS Team received a Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award today at the 2009 ESRI International User Conference (ESRI UC) in San Diego, California. The organization received this honor for its vision, leadership, and innovative use of ESRI's geographic information system (GIS) technology. The LaRC was selected from more than 300,000 organizations worldwide and recognized during today's SAG awards ceremony for making extraordinary contributions to our global society.
The LaRC uses GIS to disseminate and analyze infrastructure-related information including master planning, utility networks, and historic and cultural resources. Initially, GIS was used by the LaRC to integrate large spatially-related data sets that prevented the loss of corporate knowledge that was occurring due to an aging workforce not being replaced. More recently, the team’s focus has been to develop capabilities that reduce the cost of data maintenance while enhancing decision support capabilities in areas such as safety, security, planning, and environmental. While the GIS was implemented at the LaRC 20 years ago in an attempt provide comprehensive management of the entire center’s spatial data, the capabilities of the system migrated quickly to an analysis and planning resource.
The center’s future plans include many spinoffs from the space optimization effort. A set of enhanced technical space decision support tools will likely be developed to include cost estimation capabilities as applied to relocation of facilities. It is also hoped that GIS will be applied in other areas such as facility realignment and closing, situational awareness in battlefield management, large-scale flight coordination, and supply chain management. Additionally, lessons learned from the space allocation tools development will be applied to improve Web-based GIS information delivery. The team is also pursuing other technologies such as improved analysis of utility networks, more efficient field data collection processes, and building information modeling.
"Our world is being challenged by rapid change," says Jack Dangermond, ESRI president. "GIS technology is increasingly being deployed as a way to understand the issues facing our society. At ESRI, we are always extremely impressed with the work of our users and want to recognize their efforts with our Special Achievement in GIS Award. Their work is a great example of using GIS to improve our world."
GIS combines computer hardware, software, and data to collect, manage, and analyze geographic information. Virtually any information can be linked to a geographic location, helping people see that information as part of a complete picture. With GIS, users can view relationships, processes, patterns, and trends in the form of maps, globes, reports, and charts. Whether they are selecting routes to transport ethanol or studying landslides, GIS helps them see how the world works and changes. More than one million people across the globe rely on GIS to solve problems and make better decisions by thinking and planning geographically.
Other organizations being honored at the ESRI UC include the Artesia Water Company, Montana State Library, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Yosemite National Park, City of Madrid, DHL Express, Polytechnic of Namibia, Victoria Police in Australia, and the Grammar School at Leeds.
To learn more about the 2009 SAG Award winners and to view their photos and project descriptions and images, visit www.esri.com/sag. More information about ESRI and its GIS solutions can be found at www.esri.com.
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