OS celebrates industry praise for data management

13 February 2008, 5:57pm

Ordnance Survey’s goal of ensuring world-class standards in data collection and management has won industry recognition.

The national mapping agency’s data production management methodology, termed Production Partnership Management (PPM), is being put forward for inclusion in the body of ISO documents supporting geographic information.

It follows a workshop involving organisations from across the geographic information industry in Europe and Asia. The event was sponsored by EuroGeographics, EuroSDR, FIG and the Association for Geographic Information. Attendance was high with representation from both private survey companies and national mapping organisations.

The event, held at Ordnance Survey’s Southampton head office last November, focused on the benefits of “production partnerships” as well as the development needed to move forward towards a standard. PPM was born from an Ordnance Survey local accreditation process that ensures that the value to the customer and the production process "fitness for purpose" is transparent and monitored from the inception through to delivery. Key to the process is the collaborative approach of the parties involved in production, thus ensuring a win/win outcome.

Delegates agreed that Ordnance Survey’s approach to production management should be submitted to the International Standards Organisation. Building on the cooperation established at the workshop, the next step is to gain the required support for the submission to the technical committee (TC 211) and to redraft the proposal using the feedback collected at the event.

"We aspire to be world‑class across all of our activities," says Ordnance Survey’s Director of Data Collection and Management, Neil Ackroyd. “We believe that our production programme management principles can benefit data providers and contractors on an international scale."

For more information on PPM, including an early draft of the proposed document presented at the workshop, please go to EuroSDR workshop website:

www.eurosdr.net/workshops/partnership_20…

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