Information Builders Helps Erlanger Kentucky Police Beat Crime

TMC Launches New Web Sites: Cable | WiMAX | Satellite | Robotics | IT | IVR | ITEXPO West begins in: Register Now!

Blogs:
Rich Tehrani
Tom Keating
Greg Galitzine

...more

Columnists:

...more

E-mail this page to a friend

Order reprints online

Print this page

Free magazines

Free newsletters

[June 03, 2008]

Information Builders Helps Erlanger Kentucky Police Beat Crime

(Marketwire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) NASHVILLE, TN, June 3 / MARKET WIRE/ --

Information Builders, the independent leader
in pervasive business intelligence (BI) systems and
its subsidiary iWay Software, an innovator of enterprise
integration solutions, today announced that the Erlanger Kentucky
Police Department has used Information Builders technology to create the
first operational BI system with integrated search capabilities for local
law enforcement applications. The new information system combines current
crime data from 19 government agencies to link formerly unrelated
information about suspects, incidents, arrests, and crimes. Once the
information system is fully deployed this summer, patrol officers will be
able to respond more effectively to all types of calls and provide better
services to Erlanger's citizens.

"As local police departments strive to offer expanded services in the face
of tight or dwindling budgets, law enforcement personnel have to work
smarter to offer the same level of protection to their citizens," said Marc
Fields, Erlanger chief of police. "Erlanger PD now has an intelligent
crime-fighting tool that will boost productivity and ultimately save
lives."

According to Chief Fields, the primary motivator for this project was a
desire for better information-sharing among multiple agencies.
Historically, the Erlanger Police Department used mapping and statistical
software to provide information to patrol officers and supervisors.
Neighboring cities were using different systems, and lots of police records
were stored in filing cabinets instead of online. Today, law enforcement
personnel in ten cities throughout Northern Kentucky can share up-to-date
information through this system. It merges data from 19 government agencies
with crime records and incident reports stretching back over five years.

Information Builders Professional Services used WebFOCUS Magnify to create
the real-time search index. Patrol officers access the system via
cellular-powered displays in their vehicles. For example, if an officer
stops a speeding car and performs a quick search of the license plate
number, Magnify could display a police report from earlier in the day in a
neighboring city involving a hit-and-run incident, even if the witness at
the scene only got part of the license plate number. In this way, a suspect
in two crimes could be apprehended through a small piece of shared data.

Dispatchers and supervisors can view a different slice of this crime data
through BI dashboards at headquarters. Information Builders used WebFOCUS
and Arc/IMS from ESRI to create this interactive crime portal, which
displays real-time views of incidents, arrests, 911 calls, and other events
throughout the dispatch area. Soon, Erlanger citizens will be able to
access some of this information via a public-facing website, so they can
check on crime occurring in their neighborhoods.

As the system reaches full production mode this summer, Chief Fields said
he believes it will enable the department to better deploy its force based
on their insight into current and expected criminal activity. Ultimately
this will reduce the cost of operations through more efficient crime
solving techniques. "With the comparatively small amount of resources we
have devoted to law enforcement, being able to address specific areas and
problems will help us reduce overall crime, and even prevent some crimes
from occurring," he predicted.

According to the May 2008 report, "Search + BI = Unified Information
Access," by Boris Evelson and Matthew Brown, principal analysts at
Forrester Research, "Fortunately for information workers (and the corporate
librarians, database managers, and BI report developers who support them),
the process of digging up desired information and actually putting it to
use is getting easier as the worlds of search and BI converge. The
technology is quite close to being able to capture the linkages needed to
help decision-makers avoid mistakes and make more insightful, effective
decisions. The convergence of BI and search will help bridge the artificial
system boundaries between structured data and unstructured content. It will
not only affect the interfaces we use to search for, discover, analyze, and
report on what we need to know, but help us learn more about what we don't
know."(1)

"Erlanger PD's work with crime data is a model for many other law
enforcement agencies," said Gerald Cohen, CEO and founder, Information

Builders. "Search engines are designed to index and track Web pages, but
not necessarily database transactions. BI systems are designed for reporting and historical analysis, but not always for simple

searches. Combining the two technologies in this way can yield powerful
results."

About the Erlanger Kentucky Police Department

Erlanger, known as The Friendship City, is located in the heart of the
Greater Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky metropolitan region in northwestern
Kenton County, Kentucky. It has a population of approximately 22,000
residents. The 45-member Erlanger Police Department works in partnership
with the citizens of the community to provide a safe environment where the
quality of life is improved through the delivery of fair and impartial
police services.

About Information Builders

As a leading independent business intelligence (BI) company for the past 30
years, Information Builders has provided innovative solutions to more than
12,000 customers, including most of the Fortune 100 and numerous U.S.
federal government agencies. The company's flagship WebFOCUS product is the
world's most widely used BI platform. Superior architecture and intuitive
nature enables WebFOCUS to address the needs of everyone in the extended
global enterprise -- executive, analytical, operational, and beyond. It
provides the agility to adapt to changing business conditions with the
security, scalability, and flexibility to support dozens to millions of
users.

Unique to the company is the integration expertise it brings to the BI
market. Information Builders iWay Software suite solves complex integration
problems with pre-built components that require minimal custom programming.
The award-winning combination of WebFOCUS and iWay give Information
Builders customers the ability to embrace the company motto: "Because
Everyone Makes Decisions."

Information Builders is committed to customer service excellence with a
Professional Services division that specializes in building custom
applications using WebFOCUS and iWay Software. Headquartered in New York
City with 90 offices worldwide, the company employs 1,450 people and has
more than 350 business partners. Visit http://www.informationbuilders.com.

(1) Forrester Research "Search + BI = Unified Information Access" by Boris
Evelson and Matthew Brown, May 5, 2008.

Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=771350

Add to Digg Bookmark with del.icio.us Add to Newsvine

Press Contacts:
Kathleen Moran
Information Builders
(917) 339-6313Email Contact
Sheila Bohan
Emerge PR
(617) 729-3185Email Contact

Copyright ? 2008 Marketwire

[ Back To Contact Center Global Community's Homepage ]

Related Call Center News

Related Call Center Featured Articles

E-mail this page to a friend

Order reprints online

Print this page

Free magazines

Free newsletters

Subscribe FREE to all of TMC's monthly magazines. Click here now.

Technology Marketing Corporation,
One Technology Plaza, Norwalk, CT 06854 USA
Ph: 800-243-6002, 203-852-6800; Fx: 203-866-3326
General comments: tmc@tmcnet.com. Comments about this site: webmaster@tmcnet.com.
About Contact Advertise
Technology Marketing Corp. 1997-2008 Copyright. Privacy Policy Sitemap