Great Britain Nation's Geospatial Data Management System

Ordnance Survey, Great Britain's national mapping agency, has selected an Intergraph Corporation-led team, including 1Spatial and Snowflake Software, to provide its next generation geospatial database and data management system. This selection followed an extensive tender exercise under the European Union Public Procurement Regulations, Competitive Dialogue Procedure.

Ordnance Survey maps are internationally renowned and its data are essential to the country's government, business and individuals. The agency's national geographic database describes more than 440 million individual features - such as every house, road and field. Each year more than a million changes to the British landscape need to be measured and assimilated into this database. This equates to 5,000 changes every day, and it requires efficient planning and control.

The system will provide enterprise-wide capabilities for the management, planning, coordination, and control of data capture and production activities. Ordnance Survey's large-scale data holdings will be managed in a centralized geospatial database, and a standards-based interface will integrate field and office-based editing tools as well as those from external contractors. The system will ensure consistency between Ordnance Survey products and enable it to develop new ones.

Ordnance Survey selected the team after a rigorous six-month competitive evaluation in which potential suppliers worked to develop detailed proof of concepts.