KITCHENER - The City of Kitchener was recently selected from more than 300,000 organizations worldwide to receive a special-achievement award from the ESRI software company, in honour of its longtime and innovative use of geographic information system (GIS) technology.

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 to see that information as part of a complete picture.

The achievement award specifically highlighted the city's impressive Project Delta -- a new financial, work-order-management and asset-accounting system that utilizes hundreds of GIS and corporate database interfaces across the organization -- as an example of outstanding GIS utilization at work.

Project Delta has enabled the city's operations, utilities, engineering and finance divisions to make operational and strategic decisions based on information that is synchronized across all corporate systems, improving service to private businesses and residents.

The success of Project Delta -- specifically its quick and efficient implementation -- was due in part to the city's mature GIS corporate database.

''The city has a long history -- almost two decades -- of using GIS technology to ensure our various systems are aligned and integrated,'' said Jeff Ham, the city's manager of database administration and GIS. ''The vast knowledge and database of information we've built over the years has enabled countless successes -- including Project Delta.''

''Thanks in part to the strength of our GIS systems going into the project, we were able to complete it earlier than projected -- and under our set budget,'' added Dan Chapman, the city's general manager of financial services.

With GIS, users can view relationships, processes, patterns, and trends in the form of maps, globes, reports and charts. More than one million people across the globe rely on GIS to solve problems and make better decisions by thinking and planning geographically.