WHAT IS AM /FM?

What is AM / FM?
"Automated Mapping and Facilities Management," or AM/FM, means exactly that: to automate the mapping process and to manage facilities represented by items on the map. In the past, when a map was needed, a crew of surveyors draftspersons, and geographers would combine their resources and develop a map on paper. This map was created by hand, updated by hand, and reproduced by a professional printer. Today, it can be drawn on a computer screen using a Computer Aided Drafting and Design (CADD) software program. The map program is then connected to a database containing a variety of detailed information related to items on the map. When the map is needed to answer a question, it is displayed on the screen automatically. Updates are made quickly using a digitizing table, a mouse and a keyboard. The entire map, or just portions of it, may be selected to be printed on a plotter. The process is similar to word processing for maps.

The key advantage to AM/FM is the ability to share maps. State and federal agencies, along with utility companies, which create their own respective maps can, for example, share maps with each other. This not only saves money, but provides the ability to create hundreds of new maps, many of which never existed before, for minimal cost.

PRIMARY MARKETS

Today there are tens of thousands of AM/FM/GIS applications in use. Organizations throughout the world are using the technology to transform manually produced maps and associated descriptive records into powerful digital databases whose content can be used in applications as far flung as managing utility distribution networks, to monitoring pollution, to planning alternative traffic patterns, to redrawing voter districts, or tracking agricultural drought conditions. Once a tool that was affordable only to the largest organizations, AM/FM/GIS has become a cost-effective option for even the smallest organizations.

Gas and electric utilities use it to model distribution networks, issue work orders, dispatch service crews, market to prospective customers and plan service expansions. Telecommunications companies find it invaluable as they seek a competitive edge in the management of outside plant facilities and in the marketing of long distance services. Government agencies rely on this technology to plan new land developments, determine tax valuations, manage public works networks, route emergency vehicles, analyze crime and accident patterns, manage transportation systems and study environmental issues. Private businesses use it to make strategic decisions about locating new outlets and facilities,targeting customers more effectively and determining the impact of new or potential competitors. In a Nutshell all companies who have physical assets can reduce their costs of operations by Implementing an AM/FM solution.

FUTURE Approximately 70-80 percent of the information managed by business is somehow connected to a specific location--an address, street, intersection, or "xy" coordinate. Therefore, AM/FM/GIS technology is finding its way into every corner of the business world. And because the technology's uses are so widespread and diverse, the AM/FM/GIS market is growing at an annual rate of almost 35 percent. The commercial subsection of this market is expanding at a phenomenal rate of 100 percent each year.