Customer Challenge: 

The Office of Coast Survey (OCS) is the nation’s nautical chart maker and leader in supporting and facilitating marine commerce. OCS promotes safe navigation, meets the challenges of navigating larger ships and those that carry hazardous cargo, and provides data for geographic information system (GIS) analysis, coastal stewardship, management decisions, shoreline change analysis, and marine boundary issues. OCS collects, manages, and compiles the data and information necessary to maintain the national suite of 1,000 nautical charts. In addition, OCS conducts hydrographic surveys that measure water depth and produces coastal maps and vector shoreline series and historic maps and charts. These products support commercial shipping, the fishing industry, U.S. Navy and Coast Guard operations, state and local governments, GIS users, and recreational boaters throughout the United States. 

ERT Solution and Services:

The advance of charting technologies has resulted in an increased workload and requirement for new skills in IT problem-solving. ERT has supported OCS with the breadth and depth of experience to meet existing as well as emerging needs. Our team has complementary skills with an understanding of both IT systems and scientific application and model development, maximizing the effectiveness of problem solving and solution development.

ERT has provided OCS a tailored, integrated, and cost-effective approach to IT Service Management (ITSM) since 2006.  We have supported OCS with a wide range of services including Windows and Linux systems administration, database administration, hardware and software installation and integration, cloud engineering support, and programming services. ERT successfully partnered with OCS leadership and technical experts on many of its initiatives to contribute to OCS’s success and evolving needs.