SAS was to host a symposium at its headquarters on Thursday with municipal officials and analytics professionals in North Carolina to discuss company’s work with local government customers .

Cary, N.C. used SAS analytics tools to automate its processes for governance, public service, law enforcement, real estate, economics and other areas, SAS said Wednesday.

John Brocklebank, vice president of SAS Solutions OnDemand and head of the SAS advanced analytics lab, leads a team of 400 professionals that work with local governments to implement analytics initiatives.

The municipality uses SAS tools to run a utility portal designed to help residents track water usage by the hour.

“It is more efficient to have the data analyzed by someone who understands it,’’ said Bill Stice, technology services director for Cary.

“The information is better and more accurate, and we no longer rely on contradictory bits of data from scattered spreadsheets,” Stice added.