The Vice President for Projects was interested in several means to support projects and maintenance. Therefore, a geographical information system was created. This system has become an integrated department managed by a Saudi staff and was established in three stages.
The first stage is focused on preparing all information in formats suitable for geographic information systems. In this stage, all maps of the university’s facilities were converted from paper to digital, and accurate ground surveying was carried out for all the contents of the university city, including roads, buildings, trees, gardens, services, etc. This information was then placed in an initial geographical information system in a database based on Oracle, and part of the system was published on the website (the Internet).
The second phase: The first phase was completed and university sites such as Ulaysha, Al-Malaz, Dirab, and Al-Muzahmiya were included. Then the second phase focused more on information about the university’s infrastructure services, which included water, electricity, telephone, and all networks. After that, the geographic system database was improved and developed, and several applications were added. The most important of these were FM/AM infrastructure services applications. The geographic information system was also linked with the MAXIMO maintenance system, and the system became integrated into ESRI products and uses the Arc GIS Server 9.2 system and is in a very advanced operational state.
The third stage: This is the important stage that focuses on studying the system with its current capabilities. The fine details were completed in the mechanics rooms and the development of AM/FM applications that use ARK FM. New applications were also developed for housing, security and safety, student registration, public services, and others. There is also a major task at this stage, which is: taking care of updating the new information, adding surveying work, updating satellite images, training human cadres, and taking care of the DEM information. Linking geographic information with other systems at the university, updating satellite images, training human cadres, and taking care of DEM information.
