IC-ENC 2024 Summary
As January 2025 comes to a close, it is time to reflect on what has been an extraordinary year for IC-ENC and it’s global community. This article provides a comprehensive summary of IC-ENC’s 2024 highlights, including key initiatives, Member achievements, and milestones that are shaping the ENC and S-100 landscape.
ENC Services
Validation Service
This year, the International Validation Team have processed 19,450 ENC files, through validation 488 safety critical errors were prevented from being distributed, a total of 18,725 ENCs file were provided to our distribution network with the largest weekly release including 464 ENC files.
The validation team has continued to assist Members with the distribution of new ENCs through gridding and rescheming, as a result the IC-ENC ENC folio now stands at 14,042 files, this is a growth of over 2,200 ENCs this year. The ECD service folio has continued to grow with 9,290 ENCs within the service. October 2024 was IC-ENCs busiest month on record, the validation team completed 1,950 validations.
Knowledgebase
The S-57 Knowledgebase continues to be maintained and updated for new and changed error information identified by the Validation Team, including changes resulting from S-58 Edition 8.0. We updated the S-57 Knowledgebase six times this year, and it now holds a total of 2,463 errors.
This year, we have also grown the Knowledgebase to incorporate an ENC Conversion Knowledgebase, containing conversion log errors when converting from S-57 to S-101 and vice versa, as well as an S-100 Knowledgebase which contains IC-ENC S-1XX Ingest & Registration Checks.
S-100 Services
S-1XX Service Developments
IC-ENC has continued to develop the first generation of S-1XX services, with the capability to process multiple S-102 datasets in one exchange set, automated batch processing capability for S-104 and S-111, and enhanced S-128 generation during 2024 as the standards continue to evolve.
Testing and integration of S-101 Validation tools and Validation reporting will be a key focus in 2025, as fully operational Validation tools become available. We look forward to receiving more trial S-1XX datasets in 2025 based on S-100 Edition 5.2.0 and conducting trial services, to continually improve IC-ENC S-100 services.
We will continue to iterate the S-1XX services as the Phase 1 standards (S-101, S-102, S-104, S-111 and S-128) based on experiences.
Product Development & Testing (PDT) License
This year, we issued 5 PDT releases, bringing our total number of S-1XX trial datasets released under the PDT License to 1,376. We also onboarded 11 companies as new PDT Users, bringing the total number of PDT Users to 50 (16 companies, 34 Members).
ENC Conversion & S-1XX Production Support
We provided conversion assessments for 9 Members. These assessments provide a snapshot of how each Member’s S-57 data will convert to S-101, the errors encountered during conversion, and recommended action to be taken.
We assessed and provided feedback on S-1XX test datasets from 11 Members. These assessments provide feedback on the quality and usability of each S-1XX test dataset, and recommended action to be taken to improve each dataset.
Membership & Community
Two New Members
In 2024, we welcomed two new Members to IC-ENC. Dubai UAE joined as the 51st Member and Thailand joined as the 52nd Member during SC25 in July.
SC25
On 16th - 18th July 2024, IC-ENC held Steering Committee 25 (SC25) which was hosted by Pushidrosal, in Bali, Indonesia. The successful conference welcomed 44 Member countries, with 86 total attendees, 58 in person and 28 online. A new workshop format was trialed, where in person and virtual attendees were given the opportunity to break out into smaller groups to deep dive into specific topics, facilitated by the IC-ENC team. This conference not only highlighted the significance of global collaboration but also set a precedent for future meetings. The collective efforts and shared experiences over the three days laid a strong foundation for continued mutual support among Member countries. To read more about SC25, click here.
Secondments
2024 saw the launch of the new IC-ENC Secondment initiative which not only keeps IC-ENC at the forefront of Member needs, but also enables Members to share skills, knowledge and experiences with each other.
8 secondments were held in 2024. 6 Members hosted 13 delegates from 8 different Member organisations where topics included Quality Management Systems, Bathymetric Data Processing and Hydrographic Survey S-102 Production.
Overall Success Measure: Net Promoter Score
In February 2024, IC-ENC invited each Member to contribute its views via a formal customer satisfaction measure process (using the Net Promoter Score methodology).
The IC-ENC team is very proud to have achieved an overall NPS figure of 87 – this is formally deemed “world class” in the established methodology.
Production Support
Technical Conferences
Two Technical Conferences were held in 2024. The first was held as a hybrid meeting in Athens, Greece in March. 74 delegates met in person and 41 virtually. A grand total of 47 Member countries were represented, making it the largest TC ever! On Wednesday 13th November, IC-ENC hosted the second Technical Conference of 2024 where 75 delegates from 34 Member countries came together virtually to discuss some of the latest developments.
Learning Management System (LMS)
We currently have 508 active accounts on the Learning Management System with new content added continuously throughout 2024. The new course “Transforming S-57 BRIDGE Objects to S-101 Bridge Features” created by EWH secondee Kimberly Mason is also now available on the LMS.
Training
IC-ENC successfully conducted a diverse range of training events in 2024, with 492 training spaces occupied from 45 Member Hydrographic Offices. A mixture of face-to-face and virtual training events were delivered regionally to maximise attendance. In particular, we have listened to Members’ feedback and delivered training events within the Latin America region in Spanish.
This year’s training events included:
• S-57 to S-101 ENC Conversion Workshop (Oman, Amsterdam, Brisbane, Panama)
• S-57 ENC Validation Training (Brazil, Washington, Taunton, Wollongong)
• ENC Quality & Conversion Workshop (Istanbul)
• S-57 vs S-101 Differences Seminar (virtual) x 2
• Introduction to S-100 Seminar (virtual) x 4
• S-100 Database Roundtable Discussions (virtual, hosted by UKHO/CARIS and NOAA/Esri)
• CARIS User Conference (Netherlands, Chile)
These training events have also provided an excellent development opportunity for IC-ENC staff in becoming Subject Matter Experts for a variety of topics, developing their training skills, and building relationships with Members.
IC-ENC Learning Cloud Launched
Our IC-ENC Learning Cloud was launched in May at the S-57 Validation Training course that took place in Brazil. This innovative learning environment allows Members to access software from industry partners to partake in hands on exercises using their own ENCs and will be continuously evolved to meet the needs of our Members.
Dynamic Purchasing System Launched
IC-ENC launched the Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) to meet the needs of IC-ENC Members and their capacity building needs and to ensure they are upskilled to meet demands that the S-100 era will bring. The use of third-party providers were identified as a potential option to support training delivery by IC-ENC and/or Member-to-Member training.
To read more about the DPS, please click here.
Distribution
Current Distribution Partner Logos
VAR (Value Added Reseller) Assessment process
The VAR Assessment process has undergone a comprehensive review and update. This revision aims to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the assessment process to pave the way for S-100 distribution.
S-100 Distribution
At SC25, IC-ENC shared a clear roadmap for distributing S-100 services, and plans are now underway to ensure our distribution agreements are suitable for the early adopters of S-100 products.
Four more Members join the ECD (Electronic Chart Data) Service
With the ECD Service increasing, 2024 saw Peru, Indonesia, Venezuela and Uruguay as new participants of the service. There are now over 9,000 ENCs available in the ECD Service folio
Distribution Partners
We have successfully onboarded two new Distribution Partners and are in the process of onboarding a further nine companies.
To read the full IC-ENC 2024 Report, please click here.