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15th & 16th April 2013, Frascati, Rome

Objective

To collect the views of the EO services industry and some of their main customers regarding an industry-wide certification scheme,

  • to agree or not on the need for a scheme and establish its scope
  • the key requirements based upon draft proposals
  • to determine steps towards its implementation

Background

Certification implies that a company, a process or a service has been approved to a common, well-defined industrial standard. In any industry, certification and validation helps to reassure customers of the reliability of the product and is generally of most relevance for standard products and services. Certification can play a role in improving product quality and thereby getting users to trust the products and services helping to speed up customer acceptance of earth observation products. Certification can also play a role in reducing the cost of the earth observation products by introducing more streamlined processes

A study of a Quality Management System Certification scheme and/or a Product Certification Scheme has been issue by Hollidge Consulting Limited during 2011. This study should be used as reference background for the round table discussions. The workshop should provide an outcome input into the definition of scheme requirements and standards.

Approach

The workshop will bring together the key players from both EO service suppliers and customers. Each part of the EO service value chain will be represented; satellite operators, VA service providers, customers as well as other stakeholders; ESA, EC, EARSC. Representatives from customer sectors will include the O&G industry, insurance industry and the agriculture sector. A scheme will be proposed based on the work to date and the context of product and company certification will be addressed. The views of the various stakeholders will be presented representing differing needs at different stages of the value chain. Both institutional and commercial customers will present their views. The suppliers will be asked to present what they already do and working groups will be organised along thematic/market lines ie vertically, to examine the specific interests which will be presented to the workshop as part of a round table session. Conclusions will be drawn as to the next steps to be taken on the nature of the scheme, areas where pilot projects could be considered and linking activities between the various stakeholders.

Registration

EW-CertificationschemeworkshopProgramme-110213-1122-58.pdf

Study on free and open data policy which provides evidence that a policy of PSI (Public Sector Information) Reuse can not only be the most effective way to help the industry develop but that is also the most attractive from an economic perspective.

Report and Presentation can be downloaded below

Open Data study Final report
EARSC FODP workshop presentation

EO Industry Survey goes live!

A detailed understanding of the Earth Observation sector and the trends is essential to help stakeholders to plan their activities and to assess the effectiveness of their actions. Industry has a strong interest to ensure that accurate and up-to-date information is available.

EARSC in partnership with ESA is about to execute a survey to analyse the state of the EO Services Industry and to understand the issues that are important for its future. This will help inform ESA on the priorities for future EO value adding activities and pave the way for other stakeholder actions. It will provide critical data to help set budgets for EO research and development. It will enable EARSC to represent the industry in the most effective way.

The information collection phase will be starting soon. A web-based questionnaire will be sent to all companies believed to be active in providing or using geo-information containing some satellite data.

All European and Canadian EO service providers identified by the study team will receive an email notification from EARSC via Survey Monkey which will enable them to access the EO Survey. We estimate the total time for completion is about 15 minutes for the core survey.

The web-questionnaire will be followed by a limited number of phone interviews. Whilst the first is very focused on figures the second will be more subjective and opinion-oriented and we estimate will take around 30 to 45 minutes. We would like as many companies as possible to complete both surveys and are interested to hear from any company wishing to participate.

Active participation by the EO service industry is a critical component in ensuring that the survey can meet the objectives of furnishing a sufficiently comprehensive and accurate picture of the current industry status and health. These information will help also to identify priority issues, dominant opportunities, threats and other concerns facing the industry; therefore to have a clear picture about our sector!

If you wish to participate in the survey, or if you have any other questions regarding the survey, contact the following emails:
EARSC:Monica Miguel-Lago E:secretariat-at-earsc.org and
ESA:Ola Grabak E:ola.grabak-at-esa.int

Thank you very much for your active participation,
EARSC secretariat

The initiative on Earth Observation in the Oil and Gas industry (OGEO) had its 3rd workshop held on the 14th of September 2012 on the other side of the World – from a European perspective that is, Perth in Western Australia was the destination and Woodside Energy Ltd, the host for the day.

The time and location was chosen to coincide with another major Oil & Gas industry event and to attract a number of industry people already in town. The OGEO workshop had 86 external attendants, with 27 % coming from Europe. Participants form 9 Oil and Gas companies were represented, such as Shell, BP, Chevron and Total.

The day was filled with 21 presentations and gave a good overview of EO applications in the Oil and Gas industry. The themes covered were Environment, MetOcean and Geomatics / Infrastructure mapping with some of the talks also touching on emergency response activities using EO data. The European initiative GMES and its potential benefits for industry was discussed by a representative from ESA and the feedback from the audience was very positive and even the program is in place for many years now – not too many people in Australia know about it in detail. Another interesting talk came from KSAT in Norway and there fast response capabilities in EO after any emergency, which is quite an important operational aspect for the O&G industry. The importance of Earth Observation for MetOcean parameters was highlighted by different presenters, but a presentation by Total, France showing the integration of ‘near real time EO’ with ocean modelling to improve oil spill trajectories can be viewed as ‘state of the art’ use of Earth Observation technology. The use of EO systems at the opposite scale – small UAV’s (Unmanned Airborne Vehicles) – was demonstrated by a Australian company WorlseyParson and allows the integration of small scale observation into the bigger picture of data acquired via satellites.

OGEO is now also an official sub-committee of the OGP (International Association of Oil and Gas Producers – www.ogp.org.uk) under the Geomatics Committee, which was announced during the workshop by its current chairman

All in all, a very successful event and with a 2013 workshop being planned again in Europe OGEO members are looking forward to a successful continuation of the OGEO collaboration between the O&G industry, EO service providers and the R&D / Academia world.

The final program with abstract is published on the website: www.esa-orgeo.org and the presentations will be made available as they are being released by the authors. The workshop summary report is currently being compiled and will also be made available via the ESA website and distributed to interested people.

If you would like to find out more about OGEO please contact the OGEO via OGP or send an email via EARSC.

Dr. Peter Hausknecht
OGEO chairman

OGEO

A clear and common description of EO products and services will help suppliers and customers arrive at a common understanding of what can be offered

By proposing a common language, the taxonomy should also provide a translation between the world of EO services and the world(s) of their customers.

The aim is to present and explain the rationale for the EO taxonomy that is proposed and to address the common products and services from two perspectives:
(1) A market segmentation will provide a tool to help classify and understand the markets for EO services as well as to define the type of customer
(2) A thematic segmentation provides a tool to help describe and classify the products that are offered by the service providers.

Taxonomy for EO services market.pdf

A market place between Earth Observation industry and users

The Earth Observation value added Industry is quickly evolving. It has a pool of resources and services which must be organized, catalogued and presented in a unified tool. eopages.eu has been designed for this purpose. EOpages is a brokerage platform to help potential customers find suppliers whilst service providers will be able to promote their products.

EOpages also included a section on success stories and a photo gallery for you to illustrate possible services to different market sectors; agriculture, forestry, oil & gas, infrastructure, environment, emergency, transport, urban planning, etc. The success stories demonstrate that service companies have the resources, capabilities, knowledge and ability to address and contribute to the goals of different communities.

EARSC is a non-profit-making organisation created in 1989 with the mission to foster the development of European Geo-Information Service Industry. Our main objective is to stimulate a sustainable market for geo-information services using EO data. Today, EARSC has 68 members in more than 20 countries, and is a recognized association both in Europe and worldwide.

EARSC represents the European providers of geo-information services creating a network between industry, decision-makers and users. We consider that the market is at a crucial stage of development as Earth observation becomes more frequently used by society and adds positive value to our daily lives. Nevertheless, there are many issues, opportunities and threats facing industrial actors and, through a small secretariat, EARSC informs and involves its members though its website and newsletters, through the provision of web-tools, as well as organizing events.

Members tell us that they appreciate the opportunity to network with other similar companies and that this helps them develop new business opportunities as well as exchanging on best practices. They also like the regular flow of information as well as the knowledge that EARSC is able to influence EU and ESA policy when it is important for the sector.

The acceptance of new members has to be approved at the Board of Directors. The documents needed are:
1) signed pdf letter quoting an agreement with EARSC status, company interest in the Association, and a brief description of your company activities and
2) common EARSC Template (please request to secretariat_at_earsc.org)

More information on EARSC including how to join could be found at our website (www.earsc.org). Here you can subscribe to eomag if you do not already receive it and learn more about what EARSC is doing.

EARSC is a non-profit-making organisation created in 1989 with the mission to foster the development of European Geo-Information Service Industry. Our main objective is to stimulate a sustainable market for geo-information services using EO data. Today, EARSC has 67 members in more than 20 countries, and is a recognized association both in Europe and worldwide.

EARSC represents the European providers of geo-information services creating a network between industry, decision-makers and users. We consider that the market is at a crucial stage of development as Earth observation becomes more frequently used by society and adds positive value to our daily lives. Nevertheless, there are many issues, opportunities and threats facing industrial actors and, through a small secretariat, EARSC informs and involves its members though its website and newsletters, through the provision of web-tools, as well as organizing events.

Members tell us that they appreciate the opportunity to network with other similar companies and that this helps them develop new business opportunities as well as exchanging on best practices. They also like the regular flow of information as well as the knowledge that EARSC is able to influence EU and ESA policy when it is important for the sector.

The acceptance of new members has to be approved at the Board of Directors. The documents needed are:
1) signed pdf letter quoting an agreement with EARSC status, company interest in the Association, and a brief description of your company activities and
2) common EARSC Template (please request to secretariat_at_earsc.org)

More information on EARSC including how to join could be found at our website (www.earsc.org). Here you can subscribe to eomag if you do not already receive it and learn more about what EARSC is doing.

A detailed understanding of the Earth Observation sector and the trends is essential to help stakeholders to plan their activities and to assess the effectiveness of their actions.

Industry has a strong interest to ensure that accurate and up-to-date information is available. EARSC will shortly be starting to conduct a full survey of the industry to address amongst other matters; which are the key sectors, where are companies located, how many companies there are, what is their ownership structure, and what are their annual revenues? We are firstly trying to identify as many companies as possible in Europe which are involved in providing EO geo-information services.

We are therefore very pleased to have the support of ESA to prepare a current view of the state and health of the industry. In the next few months, and up to the end of the year, EARSC secretariat will be contacting companies to gather information about basic business activities, revenues, employees etc which will bring our understanding of the sector up-to- date. Companies will receive an on-line survey (electronic questionnaire) and a selection by telephone to interview and establish industry facts and figures that can be assessed on an annual basis to provide information on the industry trends. We strongly encourage you to participate. We aim to gather as full a picture as could be possible.

The objectives of the study are to gather analysed data to support future decision making related to the EO services sector. Specifically, we aim to: – Characterise the business of the EO services industries in Europe and Canada – Understand the way in which the industry sector has evolved over the last 5 years – Identify the key issues that the industry is facing today and over the next few years. – Draw conclusions on measures that can be taken to support the development of the sector.

A market place between Earth Observation industry and users

The Earth Observation value added Industry is quickly evolving. It has a pool of resources and services which must be organized, catalogued and presented in a unified tool. eopages.eu has been designed for this purpose. EOpages is a brokerage platform to help potential customers find suppliers whilst service providers will be able to promote their products.

EOpages also included a section on success stories and a photo gallery for you to illustrate possible services to different market sectors; agriculture, forestry, oil & gas, infrastructure, environment, emergency, transport, urban planning, etc. The success stories demonstrate that service companies have the resources, capabilities, knowledge and ability to address and contribute to the goals of different communities.