BD3.59 million deals signed
The Ministry of Electricity and Water signed yesterday a BD99,000 agreement for Geographical Information System (GIS) project and BD2.6 million contract for a new Customer Services System (CSS) at its meeting hall.
The GIS agreement was signed by the minister of electricity and water, Shaikh Abdullah bin Salman Al Khalifa, and the chairman of board of trustees for the Bahrain Centre for Studies and Research (BCSR), Dr Mohammed bin Jassim Al Ghatam.
As part of the agreement, the BCSR will be the consultation centre for the GIS project, in which it will provide the ministry with a comprehensive evaluation plan and highlight the implementation process of the project, which is expected to cost more than BD1 million.
The GIS is an important scientific tool to improve the electricity and water services in the Kingdom of Bahrain, through the establishment of data network that includes maps, locations and information about subscribers, power and water stations, electricity and water transmission and distribution networks.
The GIS project will provide services to the ministry’s directorates, which are related to collecting and updating the base layers needed in electricity and water environment, developing the GIS-based applications and providing training to the ministry’s staff, and also enforcing the spatial data standards within the ministry and other ministries.
Shaikh Abdullah said: “A GIS team will be formed in which many GIS applications will be developed to improve the performance of the ministry.”
He said that the ministry would upgrade the servers and user’s computers in order to utilise the GIS applications and connect all the ministry’s directorates through an efficient network to access and share the data from the centralised server. The address locator, which is a web-based GIS application is a user-friendly system and makes it easy to access the address data of Bahrain.
“Implementing new information technology programmes is essential for sustainable development in the Kingdom of Bahrain and to help the ministry to define its role in conceiving and implementing a new vision for the country,” the minister said, adding that the financial and partnership aspects of development in the technology field can be achieved by further analysis including various measures that should be taken by the ministry to construct the proposed policy.
Shaikh Abdullah also signed a CSS (Customer Services Systems) contract. The signing ceremony was attended by the Undersecretary Dr Abdulmajeed Alaqadhi, the ministry’s officials, as well as Cesare Cardone, CEO Gulf Business Machines, Abdullah Ishaq, GM Bahrain Business Machines W.L.L and Santiago Roura Lama, CEO Union Fenoza Soluziona from Spain.
The duration for CSS implementation will be two years, which will include software programming and the fixing of new computers and other related equipment.
The current Customer Services Systems was implemented in 1984 which is a batch- based system. It cannot provide additional functions necessary to support business requirements. The evaluation of the new Customer Services System was finalised by the ministry and was awarded to BBM, the Bahrain operation of Gulf Business Machines and Union Fenoza Soluziona, a Spanish software and services company promoted by the Union Fenoza, which belongs to one of the largest utility companies in Spain.
The CSS will include the replacement for Billing and Application Monitoring System, interfaces with existing systems, an online Cash Receipt System, an Intelligent Voice Response System (IVR), an Imaging System to customer-written documents and links with other ministries to access their data.
The main goals and objectives of the new CSS will be to establish a Call Centre to provide efficient and effective customer services to handle customer requests and complaints, to bill customers accurately on a timely basis, to provide flexible billing, to offer alternative payment methods to consumers, to provide access through the most advanced communication media link, to ensure the accuracy, security and confidentiality of information and to provide efficient and timely management information.
Shaikh Abdullah said the CSS would improve the performance of the ministry’s directorates by an integrated workflow management system.
“The ministry will be provided with a comprehensive training programme to increase the necessary skills to operate the system and to
provide the highest level of services to subscribers,” the minister said.
He said: “In order to provide better services, the ministry has continuously reviewed its procedures over the past years, to keep in line with the technology related to customer services.”
He said the ministry continues its efforts to accommodate the increase in the number of subscribers to the power and water services-approximately 4000 new subscribers every year- by adopting the latest technology in the electricity and water field.
© Bahrain Tribune 2004
