IT services and advisory firm CGI has secured an eight-year contract with the Met Office. The consultancy will now work to help the weather forecaster digitalise its toolkit, while boosting efficiency and working practices.
The Meteorological Office, abbreviated as the Met Office, is the UK’s national weather service. Since 1854 it has worked to provide operational forecasts, data, research and consultancy services.
For more than 40 years, technology consultancy CGI has delivered space software systems for clients across Europe, Australia, Asia and North America, from supporting satellite navigation, communications and operations, to space-enabled applications including weather forecasting. It will now leverage that experience on behalf of the Met Office, as it looks to more quickly develop new products to enhance meteorological services for the UK.
Simon Brown, Director of Services at the Met Office, said, “We are delighted to be able to work with CGI. The team’s expertise and capabilities shone through in their proposal, aligning with the Met Office’s vision for delivering exceptional services for our customers and allowing them to stay safe and thrive. Myself and all the team are looking forward to developing this partnership over the next eight years.”
Over the course of the contract, CGI will use an agile delivery method, working with the Met Office to rationalise its current operational meteorological tools and systems, move them to the cloud and build in workflow management and automation so meteorologists can spend more time on forecasting and product development. It will then look to digitise the organisation’s tools, enabling more efficient methods of working for the future.
Shaun Stretton, Senior Vice President, Consulting Services, for Space Control and Information Solutions at CGI in the UK, said, “Getting accurate weather products into the hands of users is increasingly important, so we are proud to be supporting the Met Office in improving its processes and making systems more efficient for its highly skilled meteorologists. We will bring a wealth of experience in agile transformation projects as well as deep understanding of weather forecasting to support this important step change for the Met Office as it invests in developing its core capabilities.”
