Institutional Issues: Local Perspective

In direct contrast to the comments made by vendors throughout the automated‐mapping facilities‐management (AM/FM) industry, neither AM/FM nor geographic information systems (GIS) will improve existing practices, provide added capabilities, or produce resalable data. What the systems will do is change the human‐machine environment. Whether the impacts resulting as outgrowths of that change result in the predicted institutional benefits of coordinated decision making between infrastructure systems, or even in the coordinated behaviors required to maintain the quality of shared data bases, etc., will depend upon management commitment as well as the quality of the management decisions made, and not upon the technology.