Together with its public and private sector clients and partners, CGIS seeks to create effective, integrated, Community–based Information Management Systems that cost-effectively meet the integration needs of communities through the development of user friendly, Web-based solutions founded upon client core competencies.
Municipalities are being asked to do more with less. Where handling information is concerned, municipalities face information overload in all departments ranging from Engineering to Planning. Each department shares data to the extent that a Geographic Information System (GIS) is the logical vehicle to integrate data sharing and functions among multiple departments. At the same time, “information islands”, or silos, present in every community could clearly benefit from the opportunities presented by a Strategy for Integrated Data Management.
In large urban municipalities, the cost benefits of establishing in-house GIS systems balance the startup and ongoing costs of GIS. However, where small and medium urban and rural municipalities are concerned the economies of scale are simply not present. That is, they deal with the same data and decision making problems faced in large urban centers, but must rely on a comparatively small capital resource base to fund activities. Consequently, the most probable way for such municipalities to realize economies of scale is the development of centralized GIS in which any single municipality carries only a share of the financial burden rather than the entire cost.
The Community-based GIS Model employs the rule of diminishing costs. That is, there is one large ever-growing system with many components shared by the partners. Each application is built on the infrastructure of the previous applications. The very first project will include the cost of building the base system but after that no other projects have to build the base – especially if it is already established and being maintained by community partners.
Without the vehicle of a central GIS system delivered across a Municipal Intranet or Internet, small centers are doomed to either bite the bullet to fund local GIS installations or to resign themselves to not having a GIS system and being overwhelmed by increasing data and service demands. By implementing a Community-GIS Model, municipal centers are able to reduce operational costs, improve service levels, improve information accessibility and provide the basis for more informed management and public safety decisions. CGIS Spatial Solutions has identified and integrated 5 core philosophies into the operational GIS solutions implemented for clients.
The primary responsibility for any Local data set should rest in the hands of those persons whose core competency is the specific data set(s). Since virtually all data accessed by local clients on a regular basis is local rather than upper tier data, integrated Information Systems should be based on a Bottom-Up model rather than the traditional Top-Down Models.
If data is to be truly useful, it must be current, accurate and complete. Where Local data is concerned, such utility can most effectively be achieved through the use of a Bottom-Up Model. The Community-based GIS model is a model of a true information sharing network. Data is written once and used by staff and partners without timely and costly data extraction, transfer, and re-integration.
Confidence and data integrity is virtually impossible to establish unless users can be provided with one common data view. That view must be the most current, most accurate and most complete data available.
The Community-based GIS Model employs the rule of diminishing costs. That is, there is one large ever-growing system with many components shared by the partners. Each application is built on the infrastructure of the previous applications.