Information Builders Helps Erlanger Kentucky Police Beat Crime

NASHVILLE, TN--(Marketwire - June 3, 2008) - 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.

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