Redlands, California—ESRI announces that ScottishPower plc, headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland, has awarded a contract valued at £750,000 (approximately US$1.5 million) to ESRI (UK) Ltd. to provide a mobile geographic information system (GIS). The second-generation system will enable up to 800 engineers, working across 70,000 miles of ScottishPower’s United Kingdom electricity networks, to access and record map-based information while in the field.

The GIS will enhance ScottishPower’s network operations capabilities by giving field engineers immediate access to accurate information such as the location of cables and other remote equipment. Field engineers will be provided with the latest mobile technology, including rugged notebook and Tablet PCs, to replace legacy field mapping and inspection platforms, giving them access to a complete set of mapping, operational, and infrastructure data. This will ensure better service for customers by minimizing the need for engineers to travel to company offices to access network information, thus increasing operational efficiency and reducing costs.

The contract includes software and services from ESRI (UK) Ltd. including ArcGIS Engine, a development tool for building customized, geographically enabled software applications, and GeoField Network Map Viewer, a comprehensive field mapping application designed for the utility industry and developed by Sigma Seven limited, an ESRI (UK) Ltd. business partner. Consulting services are also being provided by ESRI (UK) and Sigma Seven to tailor the field-based software for ScottishPower and integrate it with the utility’s existing systems.

ScottishPower provides electricity transmission and distribution services in the United Kingdom, supplying more than 4.3 million homes and businesses in Scotland; Merseyside, England; and North Wales. Investment in the latest GIS tools furthers ScottishPower’s business goals of continuous improvement and operational excellence and also supports its initiative to provide timely information to field engineers, enabling them to be more effective.

The ESRI-based system will integrate mapping information and geographic data with

other documents, for example, new proposals, plans of substations, and asset inspection schedules, so that field engineers will have all necessary information at their fingertips.

ScottishPower has been using field-based GIS for many years. The ESRI (UK) and

Sigma Seven next-generation mobile GIS solution was chosen following a competitive tender including other major GIS providers in the utility GIS market. The system is currently being delivered and scheduled to go live across ScottishPower’s north and south regions in
February 2007.

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 About ESRI (UK) Ltd.

ESRI (UK) is part of the global ESRI network. With the single largest pool of GIS expertise in the United Kingdom, the company is the technical authority on GIS. ESRI (UK) provides solutions, technology, and services including off-the-shelf applications built on the ArcGIS software suite and an extensive range of consulting and training services. Its offerings meet a range of business needs in different markets, including utilities and telecommunications, business, local and central governments, and public safety, as well as catering for system integrators and application developers through the ESRI Developer Network (EDN). ESRI (UK) customers include both public sector and commercial clients such as Manchester City Council, Royal and Sun Alliance, Thames Water, National Grid, and the Environment Agency. For further information, visit www.esriuk.com.

About Sigma Seven Limited

Sigma Seven staff are specialists in the implementation of innovative mobilization and map management systems that enable field and office staff to work more efficiently, delivers significantly improved customer service, and enhance the quality and effectiveness of corporate data. Leveraging extensive experience in utility field operations, Sigma Seven’s GeoField solutions are used by major organizations, such as ScottishPower and Scottish Water, to support a wide variety of map-based business functions including asset inspection, vegetation management, and work estimation. For further information, visit www.sigmaseven.co.uk.

 About ESRI

Since 1969, ESRI has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, ESRI software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. ESRI applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world’s mapping and spatial analysis. ESRI is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit ESRI at www.esri.com.