October 08, 2009 -- National Grid Gas has selected ESRI (UK), the market leader in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) solutions, to provide the geo-spatial components for its Gas Distribution Front Office Transformation Programme. This is a major initiative to upgrade a large number of National Grid’s front office IT systems in a drive to improve operational efficiency and enhance customer service. ESRI (UK)’s selection follows a global open tender procurement process which included all major GIS vendors.

Over 80% of National Grid’s operational and management decisions have a spatial context; from asset management, engineering analysis and design to operations, marketing and finance. GIS enables this information to be more effectively combined, analysed, visualised and shared. The Gas Distribution Front Office Transformation Programme will exploit this through the integration of ESRI’s desktop, web and mobile GIS systems with National Grid’s asset and work management solutions. The overall system will be deployed in stages to cover National Grid’s main business functions; asset maintenance, emergency response, repair and construction.

Corinne Lury, Senior IT Manager at National Grid says “We ran a robust process to ensure we selected the best GIS product and supplier to deliver our requirements and also deliver the Geospatial components into a wider business transformation programme. From a technical perspective integration is key requiring close working between all our product vendors. We are pleased to be working with ESRI (UK) as we move forward on our exciting journey.”

Richard Waite, Managing Director of ESRI (UK) commented “We are delighted that National Grid has chosen ESRI (UK) to support such an important transformation project. We pride ourselves on our domain knowledge and our ability to work with our customers to understand their specific needs. GIS is now recognised as a critical enterprise capability, rather than a specialist, back office technology. We look forward to helping National Grid ensure the success of this project and to supporting their business longer term.”