AEC Systems  has won the Spatially Enabling Business Award for its web-based Cemetery Mapping Software, developed using Autodesk MapGuide.

AEC Systems submitted its development of the Lilydale Cemeteries Trust Cemetery Mapping Software Project for the award.

The software was designed to effectively manage the geographically-based grave and niche position data across its four separate Victorian cemeteries and crematoria.

The whole project was deployed in under six months, with AEC Systems particularly impressed with Autodesk MapGuide’s capability for changes to be easily made throughout the process.

"We found it very easy and quick to deploy over the four large sites managed by Lilydale Cemeteries Trust. While we did consider other products, we found Autodesk MapGuide to be the easiest and best fit for what we needed to do," said Brian McDonald, AEC Systems’ Spatial Business Unit Director.

Autodesk MapGuide enables AEC Systems’ Mapping System to be linked directly to Lilydale Cemeteries Trust’s SQL Server database, and ensures the most updated information is displayed and made availableto all staff.

The system has enhanced the to Lilydale Cemeteries Trust’s competitive capabilities, and enables staff to provide customers with a higher quality of service in no longer needing to leave the office to walk around or visit the disparate cemeteries when helping a family select a grave site.

In addition, by integrating the solution with the to Lilydale Cemeteries Trust’s website, the general public can preview the location of a gravesite before visiting a cemetery, thus relieving grieving relatives and friends from having to visit the cemetery office for directions.

Some 500 new sites are added across the four Lilydale cemeteries each year, and thousands of people accessed the public website in the last 12 months, indicating the scope of the system’s benefits for both internal staff and the general public.

In addition to Lilydale, AEC Systems has implemented the Cemetery Mapping solution into around 50 cemeteries and crematoria across Australia, with a number of these cemeteries comprising of more than 400,000 individual grave sites.

This gives AEC automatic entry to the regional award category, the 2007 Asia Pacific Spatial Excellence Awards, to be held in Sydney on 22 November 2007.