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APPENDIX B Production Modernization Plan The Nautical Charting Services Production Modernization Plan (NOS, 1995) describes projects and tasks that will carry forward the nautical chart production modernization effort from fiscal 1996 to fiscal 1998. The general strategy of the plan is to improve services by "taking advantage of automation technologies." The plan takes into consideration the suggestion of Goodchild et al. (1995) that the most promising alternative is likely to be a combination of useful components of ANCS II with SCARS/CAC. The plan acknowledges that additional informa- tion is needed to make final decisions about the disposition of various tools. The plan describes three major projects: 1. ANCS II implementation and phase-in 2. raster compilation of new editions 3. vector data sets for limited themes The implementation and phase-in of ANCS II includes pilot operations; sys- tem support, refinement, and migration; development of an NIDB-SCARS/CAC interface; and development of an ANCS II database load plan. Pilot operations are to be accelerated to production of 50 new editions and maintenance of the entire 5th U.S. Coast Guard District (about 100 charts) by fiscal 1998. System support and maintenance is expected to require six to eight in-house personnel and $3.5 million in contract support and maintenance during fiscal 1996 to fiscal 1998. In addition, $1.5 million is scheduled for contract work on deferred items and about $1 million for migration of hardware and software to Windows NT. An NIDB-SCARS/CAC interface is to be developed in fiscal 1996 using one half- time employee position in-house and one full-time employee on contract. Two 45
46 NAUTICAL CHART PROGRAM full-time in-house employees are allocated to the development of an ANCS II database load plan in fiscal 1996. Raster compilation of new editions includes improvements to the SCARS and CAC software, deployment of SCARS/CAC, and on-going production of new editions and maintenance of all charts using SCARS/CAC. The planned re- finements to SCARS and CAC deal with the direct importation of digital source data, task management, and tracking and archiving. These refinements represent steps toward expanding SCARS/CAC into a more complete production system with functions similar to ANCS II (estimates of required resources are not given in the plan; it appears that in-house resources are to be used). Deployment of SCARS and CAC is to be accomplished in fiscal 1996 and is budgeted to require $450,000 in new computer hardware and two in-house full- time employee positions for training. The raster product suite was complete as of December 1995. Continual maintenance of raster charts will be tested on charts for the 8th U.S. Coast Guard District and expanded later to the full raster chart suite. Vector data sets of limited themes are to be developed from source data and exported to SCARS/CAC, the ANCS II NIDB, and S-57. Initial efforts will fo- cus on San Francisco Bay. The themes to be collected are yet to be determined, but they will likely include the following: channel limits, traffic separation schemes, fairways, anchorages, aids to navigation, bridge clearances, obstruc- tions in and around main shipping routes, and detailed depth information in and around channels. These data will be made available at an accuracy of 1 to 3 meters (1 to 2 orders of magnitude better than most present chart data), in S-57 format, current to within one week, as a digital product only. Likely uses include a combination with raster images in "hybrid" electronic chart displays. A definition of the themes and extraction specifications are soon to be completed so that a demonstration data set can be delivered by the second quarter of fiscal 1996; a national deploy- ment decision is scheduled for the third quarter of fiscal 1996. The plan suggests that this work will be performed in-house.
