By 2012, frustrated by this difficult-to-maintain-and-access, manual system of storing maps, engineer Abdulla Al Osaimi, head of the Section IT Department and GIS manager of MEW, was determined to make improvements. Following an exhaustive search, he approached Esri's Kuwait distributor OpenWare Information Systems Consulting Company (Hawalli, Kuwait), as well as Esri Platinum Tier Partner Khatib & Alami Lebanon (Beirut, Lebanon), and together, this team created the GIS Project, which focuses on carry-out services and provides an integrated GIS utility business solution based on Esri's ArcGIS software and ArcFM software from Schneider Electric (formerly Telvent Miner & Miner) of Fort Collins, Colorado. The solution included application software packages to provide an efficient and cost-effective business system to support MEW's core businesses in planning, operation, and management, while also providing a secure GIS repository for conserving electricity and water data resources.