Nicom IT Solutions Wins American Port Contract

January 21, 2008 Halifax, Nova Scotia

By BRUCE ERSKINE Business Reporter
Chronicle Herald

Nicom IT Solutions won a major contract to rebuild the port logistics system for the Maritime Exchange for the Delaware River and Bay, an organization based in Philadelphia. Capitalizing on successful projects of a similar nature for the Port of Halifax and the Port of Saint John, Nicom was able to beat out other contenders from all over North America.

The new system, called “Maritime On-Line” will consist of a number of software applications to capture and report on:

• Vessel movement
• Cargo manifests
• Customs and Border requirements
• and advanced arrival/departure schedules

This will be a web-based electronic commerce system that will be used by a large number of organizations who are located all over the world. This project will take a team of developers most of the year to develop.

Pat d’Entremont, Nicom Partner in charge of new business development sees this as pivotal in Nicom’s growth plans. “This will be the largest project we’ve undertaken since the merger [between DDA Solutions and Nicom Ltd. in early 2006]”, says d’Entremont, “and is the foot-in-the door we’ve been working so hard to establish into the U.S. marketplace. We will be able to use this win as a springboard to many other new opportunities”.

Nicom had been targeting the eastern US marketplace, having recently taken several trips to that market in association with organizations like Nova Scotia Business Inc. and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

As well as building the application, Nicom is in discussions with the Maritime Exchange for marketing this product, once completed, to other ports throughout the world.

“Opportunities like this don’t come every day and we fully intend to capitalize on it”, says d’Entremont.

Nicom’s initial foray into port systems began with a contract in Saint John New Brunswick where they developed a system to manage vessel and cargo movement, hazardous goods and property leasing for the Saint John Port Authority. In related business, Nicom also developed a system for the Atlantic Pilotage Authority that enables central dispatching of marine pilots across the four Atlantic Canadian provinces.

Then last year, a container dwell time management system that Nicom developed for the Port of Halifax won an award from the American Association of Port Authorities for “improvements in intermodal freight transportation”. Intermodal freight transportation refers to freight that is shipped via multiple modes of transportation, for example both sea and rail. The system tracks dwell time (the time a container sits at a terminal) and transit time (time to its ultimate destination), two key factors for the Port of Halifax to be competitive.

It was this award that caught the attention of the Maritime Exchange in Philadelphia and which led to this new contract for Nicom.

Media Contact:
Pat d’Entremont, Nicom Maritime
902-454-5656,
pat.dentremont@nicommaritime.com