Cambridge, UK, 31 March 2004. Laser-Scan is pleased to announce a contract from the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO), Ministry of Defence, for the support and maintenance of key operational production systems.
The contract provides the UKHO with continued maintenance for two years to support chart production systems covering 3,300 charts. This includes both the Standard Navigational charts in paper form, and raster as the Admiralty Raster Chart Service (ARCS). The arrangement incorporates a Site Licence which will allow the UKHO to flexibly deploy and extend their existing application licences to meet developing operational scenarios.
The support and maintenance element includes the application and database architecture suite known as Integrated Production Support (IPS) for publishing nautical information. It integrates Gothic data, Oracle data, modeling tools, managing metadata for 3,000 charts, maintaining records for 80,000 navigational lights, computing tide predictions, magnetic variations and various other processes.
A component of the contract is the provision of arrangements to support UKHO IT staff in the migration of applications between versions of operating systems and latest releases of base architecture.
Duncan Guthrie, Laser-Scan's Sales and Marketing Director commented:
"We are very pleased that the UKHO and Laser-Scan are able to continue the working relationship that has developed over a number of years. We take great pride in the fact that our products make a major contribution to the operational and commercial activities of the UKHO. This is the first major award by the UKHO since our recent MBO and it reinforces our commitment to our long-term customer base and the mapping and charting market"
A key factor in the decision of the UKHO to award this contract was the appreciation shown by Laser-Scan in meeting the UKHO's requirements for a more flexible and dynamic approach to application deployment and usage.
Ray Paice, Head of ICTS at the UKHO commented:
"I'm pleased with Laser-Scan's ongoing commitment to one of the UKHO's key toolsets and the flexibility they have shown in addressing our business needs. Overall the new arrangement represents a good value for money solution for the UKHO."
This latest contract further re-affirms the relationship between the UKHO and Laser-Scan. The UKHO is one of Laser-Scan's largest customers with a relationship that spans over 20 years. The numerous projects include the Unit's use of Laser-Scan's LITES software to create a paper and raster chart production system and the development of the IPS1 system based on Laser-Scan's Object-Oriented database architecture.
For more information please contact Sarah Warlow. Tel: +44 (0)1223 420414, Fax : +44 (0)1223 420044 Email :
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
About Laser-Scan Laser-Scan delivers world-class, innovative business solutions for geographic information. Our technology is the result of over 35 years experience in the development of market-leading database products. Laser-Scan offers a new approach to exploiting location data in enterprise information architectures.
About the UKHO The UKHO is one of the world's premier suppliers of navigational paper charts and publications, with a folio of over 3,300 charts and 220 publications sold under the Admiralty brand. Over three-quarters of the UKHO's charts and publications are sold to the world's commercial shipping market to satisfy Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) regulations.
See more 
