Data integration and MIS in the water industry

The typical UK water authority owns and operates a wide variety of computerised information systems. Each of these typically handles data that may be related to data on other systems, but generally the interfaces between the systems are limited to manual data interchange or the input of subjectively derived data synopses. Inefficient use of data is costly and can be potentially disastrous. As a result, trends in information technology in the industry are towards systems which integrate data and can provide high-level management decision support information. The article outlines some of the management problems facing the UK water industry, and describes an operational information management system, designed to satisfy the above criteria, which is currently undergoing prototype evaluation in a UK water authority