United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

The Ministry of Works provides the citizens of Bahrain, businesses, and other government entities, various services related to the diverse functions which MOW performs. To avail these services or get information related to the service the customer had to visit the service counter at MOW. The customer had to make visits to the service counter to submit documents, check status of his application, submit missing documents, and get the final service document.
This rendered the whole process slow and inefficient. Sometimes the customer had to visit multiple service counters to finally find out which service counter is appropriate for his kind of service request. The lack of electronic information channel, and electronic service channel was resulting in low efficiency of service delivery.
Also, it was time consuming for the customers to travel to the service counters to avail the service and then wait in queue for their turn. MOW service counters are scattered all over the country, so in some cases the customers had to travel much before they could complete lodging an application for service.
The service delivery process itself used to be slow involving lot of papers for each service applications. It used to be difficult to retrieve an application from stack of applications. The applications could be easily misplaced, lost, or damaged. This resulted in delays in service delivery and sometimes the customer had to resubmit documents which reduced service quality and customer satisfaction.
The solution addresses these problems by automating the workflow and electronically storing the documents facilitating fast document access, secured and safe document storage, and fast service delivery.
Now, in certain cases, the customers are serviced instantly whereas earlier it used to take at least three days to service the customer application.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
The initiative aims to disseminate information and services over the electronic channel to overcome and the address the issues and concerns with the existing mode of information and service delivery. It aimed to provide MOW customers and the citizens of Bahrain with the latest information and updates along with new and improved automated channels to provision its services. The customer can avail the services and get information from the comfort of their home, or office, and even while on the move using the mobile e-services portal. The customer can check the status of their request anytime, and are informed by email and SMS whenever there is a change in the status of their request. The customer can avail the services through multiple channels, viz. MOW web site, MOW e-services portal, MOW mobile e-services portal, and even the Bahrain E-Government portal. The availability of these various channels makes it easier for the customer to access the service online and even on the go using any mobile device which can access the Internet. The solution has increased the efficiency of the service delivery process by automating the workflow and electronically storing the documents facilitating fast document access, secured and safe document storage, electronic notifications when application moves from one stage to next, and fast service delivery. The result is increase in customer satisfaction as well as increase in the efficiency of MOW employee’s performance. MOW is the one and only ministry in Bahrain to have implemented the e-services portal and the mobile e-services portal using in-house resources, in-house infrastructure, and open-source technologies. The e-services well-organized based on the type of customer, this makes it easy to find the required e-service on the portal. MOW has released 8 e-services so far catering to the needs of individuals, businesses, and other government entities. Proper security measures are implemented to make sure that the data is accessed by authorized person only. The security is implemented by using intuitive mechanisms, for example using the personal identification and application number as authorization information. Only the person who has submitted the application would know the information, and the personal number as well as the correct application number. The e-services released so far are Sanitary Complaints, Sanitary House Connection, Abnormal Load Permission, Material Testing Results (QC), Contractor Prequalification, Building Maintenance Requests, Traffic Signal Service Request, and Traffic Diversion Request. A new e-service Road Fault Report is under implementation and would be released soon. MOW is not a transaction intensive ministry, but our transactions are long running and time consuming. After implementation of the e-services and mobile portal more than 5000 transactions are being processed every year using the electronic channels. In certain cases the customers are served instantly. Earlier it used to take at least 3 days to service their applications.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The initiative was proposed, designed, and implemented completely by Information Technology Directorate of the Ministry of Works, Bahrain. In-house resources were used for the design and implementation. The solution is in line with the Bahrain 2030 vision and the e-government initiative of the Government of Bahrain. The solution utilizes open source technologies which reduces the infrastructure and maintenance costs making the solution economical and sustainable. The use of in-house resources for the implementation of the solution further lowers the implementation costs and makes the expansion and maintenance more affordable.

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
It is the mission of the Ministry of Works, Bahrain, to “Provide public works services to enhance the quality of life” of the citizens of Bahrain. Since 2003 MOW has been using Balance Scorecard methodology for its strategy management. Keeping in mind its mission to enhance the quality of life of the Bahrain citizens, in 2007 an objective was established to provide MOW services over electronic channels. The implementation of the e-services portal and the mobile e-services portal were established as initiatives under this objective. These objectives and initiatives were established by Information Technology Directorate in line with the Bahrain 2030 vision and the e-government initiative of the government of Bahrain.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
In 2003 MOW implemented its website which provided its customers with information on the various services it offered along with other general useful information. Taking this objective forward, in 2007, a new objective was formulated to provide MOW services over the electronic channels. The initiative to implement the e-services and mobile e-services portal were established under this objective. In 2009, MOW released its e-services portal and in 2010 the MOW mobile e-services portal was released. At the time of release there were 6 services which could be availed using the electronic portals. As of today there are 8 services available on the portals.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
Formal risk assessment and mitigation was planned as part of the project plan for the various initiatives. One of the obstacles encountered was the adoption of the new channels by the customers. A variety of approached were used to overcome this obstacle. Firstly, an initiative was established to increase the awareness of the electronic channels, and the services available through these channels. Secondly, the service directorates made the use of electronic channel mandatory for business customers after a certain cut-off date. Another obstacle was the choice of technology, and the costs associated in development or procuring the solution, maintaining it, and expanding it in future. A detailed comparative research was conducted to weigh various options. The management was presented with a report of the findings to seek their support and approval on the recommendations. Open-source technology was chosen to implement the solution using in-house resources. This approach drastically reduced the cost of implementation and maintenance. It also made future expansion of the solution economical. Use of in-house resources added to the cost reduction and expandability of the solution.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
MOW used only its in-house human resources to implement the solutions for the objective. 2 analyst programmers, 1 system architect, and 2 project manager executed and managed the projects. The only financial cost worth considering was the salaries paid to the human resources involved. Since open-source technology was used there was no cost involved in procuring and maintaining the technology. The infrastructure used for the projects is shared with other solutions. This reduces the share of the cost incurred to implement the solution. The total cost of the infrastructure components is less than 10,000 BHD. These choices drastically reduced the cost of implementation and maintenance of the solution. It also made future expansion of the solution economical. Use of in-house resources added to the cost reduction and expandability of the solution. Since the solution was developed in-house and hosted on MOW infrastructure, MOW has full control and access over the solution code and the infrastructure components. The infrastructure is managed by MOW infrastructure team thus sharing the cost of the infrastructure management with the rest of the MOW infrastructure. The availability and intellectual proprietary rights over the code of the solution does away with the license, maintenance, support, and extension costs.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The initiative is highly sustainable and can be easily transferred. The use of open-source technology, in-house human resources, and shared infrastructure made the cost of procuring, maintaining, and expanding the solution negligible. Hence, the financial resources required to sustain the solution are negligible increasing its sustainability. The skills required to maintain, expand, and alter the solution are available in-house. Ore resources can be trained by the existing resources by knowledge sharing and formal training. This also increases the sustainability of the solution since it would be easy to adapt the solution with changing needs. The solution is built on standard and open-source technologies like Java, WSRP, Apache Web server, web services, HTML, XHTML, etc. This makes it easy to train human resources at other public institutions for implementation of similar solution. The solution itself can be transferred to other entities because of this standardization. The low cost of implementation further increases the ease at which the solution can be transferred.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The initiative made it possible to to disseminate information and services from MOW to its customers over the electronic channel. It provides MOW customers and the citizens of Bahrain with the latest information and updates along with new and improved automated channels to provision its services. The customer can avail the services and get information from the comfort of their home, or office, and even while on the move using the mobile e-services portal. The customer can check the status of their request anytime, and are informed by email and SMS whenever there is a change in the status of their request. The quality of MOW services has increased with this initiative along with customer satisfaction. One of the main lessons learnt were that it is possible to use open-source technology, in-house resources, and shared infrastructure to deliver a low cost yet highly effective and sustainable solution. With careful comparative analysis the benefits of acquiring and developing in-house skills is evident. Another lesson learnt was that it is equally important that the electronic channels are advertised properly so that they are utilized to the fullest extent. Various approaches are possible to increase the channel utilization and the organization has to deploy a mix of various approaches to gain the end result. MOW service directorates have changed some of their policies to encourage the use of electronic channel. For example, the Material Engineering Directorate advices its customers to use the Material Testing Results (QC) e-service to download the material test results report. Also, the Sanitary Engineering Projects and Planning Directorate advices the construction consultants to use the Sanitary Connection e-service to apply for sanitary connections. Ministry of Works established the objective “ITD-C01: World Class eGov Services” to develop and enhance the e-services platform. The objective has two measures Ministry of Works established the objective, “ITD-C01-m01: E-Gov Services Coverage” which measures the number of services which are made available over the electronic channel. And “ITD-C01-m02: E-Gov Services Utilization” which measures the number of transactions which happen over the electronic channel. As of end of third quarter of year 2011, the measure “ITD-C01-m01: E-Gov Services Coverage” reported that eight services are available over the electronic channel. The measure “ITD-C01-m02: E-Gov Services Utilization” reported that 3929 transactions were carried out in the first three quarters of year 2011.


Institution Name:		Ministry of Works
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Hisham Sater
Title:		Information Technology Directorate
Telephone/ Fax:		+97317545466
Institution's / Project's Website:		http://www.works.gov.bh/
E-mail:		snaveen@ega.gov.bh
Address:		Building 86, Road 1802, Block 318, Hoora , Manama, Bahrain
Postal Code:		P.O. BOX 5
City:		Manama
State/Province:
Country:		Bahrain

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information