Manila Water Company Inc. early this week was given the 2017 Esri Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award by Esri President Jack Dangermond in a special ceremony during the weeklong Esri User Conference in San Diego, California.

Manila Water Inc. joined some 76 foreign companies who were given this year’s 2017 SAG Awards for their notable work and achievement in their GIS. Ms. Melanie Abuel, representing Manila Water, personally received the SAG Award from Dangermond.

Specifically, Manila Water Inc. joined 8 water companies namely, Cape Verde’s Aguas de Santiago, Brazil’s Compania de Saneamento Ambiental do Distrito, Chile’s Aguas de Santiago, South Korea’s Department of Information Management, Latvia’s Riga Water, Qatar’s General Electric & Water Corporation, Palestine’s Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, and Uruguay’s OSE. They were cited by Esri for their notable GIS work in water/wastewater/stormwater management.

On Manila Water’s part, it was able to provide cost-effective solutions within the corporation by leveraging the ArcGIS platform in its Enterprise Asset Management Program. This has resulted in at least US$1.4M within a year and a minimum of US$100,000 OPEX savings per year on project monitoring and regulatory compliance. Aside from impacting the company’s bottom line, Manila Water’s GIS Maximazation Program also brought several improvements in the enterprise and in providing better service to its customers.