PETRONAS and Majlis Bandaraya Shah Alam (MBSA) have represented the best of Malaysian ingenuity on the global stage by receiving a prestigious Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award, at the international Esri User Conference, held in San Diego (USA) and attended by more than 100,000 delegates from around the world.
The award program, which attracts more than 300,000 nominations from across the globe, was established by Esri – the world-leader in GIS (Geospatial Information System) technology – to recognise organisations pioneering new and innovative applications of smart mapping capabilities.
MBSA’s nomination came off the back of the city council’s launch of a new monitoring dashboard system, designed to record data and boost workplace efficiency.
To achieve this, the council fitted the dashboard with an interactive map within which MBSA officers record, engage and provide insights into assessment taxes, the sum of collected assessment taxes, the different categories of assessment taxes and their status.
The dashboard also effectively displays map layers of the various buildings and land-uses within the city of Shah Alam. More than 100 staff across various departments can access the dashboard.
As a result, MBSA staff can efficiently address customer queries and monitor the status and condition of issues licenses across Shah Alam.
“Our genuine commitment to provide good customer service to the residents of Shah Alam is what drives our desire to make our operations more efficient through the adoption of smart technologies,” said Pn. TPr. Nurul Sheema Abdul Rahman, Deputy Director of Planning at MBSA and project lead of the dashboard system.
“As one of the largest council authorities in Malaysia, we have a responsibility to practice a community- focused approach to digital transformation. We asked ourselves: “What limits sustainable urbanisation?” The answers were all connected to poor governance and collaboration”.
“We currently manage over RM300 million in tax collection from over 275,000 account holders and it is vital that we satisfy the residents of Shah Alam by demonstrating that we are working as efficiently and effectively as possible. By utilising smart technologies like GIS, we are able to demonstrate excellence in public administration and provide the growing Shah Alam community with better online services.”
PETRONAS was nominated for digitally transforming common exploration activities by embedding smart mapping technology at the heart of the highly complex operation.
The petroleum giant, who is no stranger to being recognised globally for their progressive thinking, developed the Explore on the Go (EOTG) portal which enables Exploration Geoscientists to study and prospect dynamically. EOTG is a centralised GIS-based visualisation platform for a series of workflows that enables data integration to be shared and made accessible across the technical and management teams.
Previously, data was only available across separate applications. As a result of this integration, EOTG enables display and interpretation of information – boosting business processing and allowing easy access from mobile and web applications.
The inventive application of GIS technology - to centrally capture the company’s critical business data, for analysis and prediction of risk, uncertainty, and economic potential – was viewed as having potential far beyond the petroleum sector.
Esri Malaysia Chief Executive Officer Mr CS Tan said, “Across the Asia Pacific region, Malaysia has established itself as a hub for geospatial technology innovation. Now, with the achievements of groups such as MBSA and PETRONAS being recognised on the global stage, the ingenuity of this country’s spatial community can be more broadly celebrated.”
“In winning a SAG Award MBSA and PETRONAS join the ranks of an elite field including – Microsoft, Sime Darby, UNICEF, SWCorp Malaysia, and ExxonMobil – all past recipients of the accolade,” Mr Tan said.
If you would like more details or to have any questions answered by the media team, contact Martin Volz, Senior PR and Communications Advisor.