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e-BO case study

Maritime Information Crossroads (MIK)

From fragmented systems to one common operational picture for maritime security

At a glance:

  • Market: Public Safety | Maritime Security
  • Scope: Multi-agency cooperation between Defence, Customs, Federal Police, and Federal Public Service Mobility.
  • Mission: Safeguard Belgium’s coastal waters, ports, and off shore infrastructure.
MIK Geozones

The challenge

Belgium’s maritime domain is one of the busiest and most complex in Europe: commercial shipping lanes, fishing activities, wind farms, pipelines, and high-risk assets. Yet the agencies tasked with protecting it historically worked with separate, unconnected systems. Operators had to switch between 17 different applications, often copying information manually. This created delays, inconsistencies, and blind spots.

“We often struggled with missing connections, wrong or delayed data, says an Operational Manager at MIK. “To find information, we had to search across multiple applications and systems.

For operators, that meant losing valuable time and sometimes not having the full picture when decisions had to be made.”

The challenge was clear: MIK needed a modern, integrated digital environment that would allow all agencies to collaborate on the same operational picture, reduce manual workload, and guarantee security at sea.

The solution

In 2020, the Belgian Ministry of Defence awarded e-BO Enterprises the tender to design, deliver, and maintain a mission-critical maritime monitoring platform. The project required not only a new application but also a digital backbone. e-BO stood out as the sole provider combining IT/OT expertise with off shore, defence, and infrastructure experience, delivering the full digital stack.

A full digital stack: Compute, Connect, Protect, Navigate

Compute:

Hyperconverged private cloud at MIK’s Zeebrugge base, hosting the application and critical services.

Connect:

Integration with e-BO’s secure 4G.

Protect:

Hardened cybersecurity, monitored via SLA’s with e-BO’s security operations.

Navigate:

24/7 control room with video wall and operator workstations, and all sources merged into one common operational picture.

A unified operational picture

At the heart of the solution is a unified operational picture: Numerous separate applications have been integrated into a single GIS-based interface. Operators no longer need to jump between systems, but can manage incidents, alarms, and procedures from one environment.

From there, the platform enables:

  • Multi-agency collaboration: Customs, Defence, Police, Mobility, Department for the Marine Environment, and Scientific Service Management Unit of the Mathematical Model of the North Sea work from the same system while controlling access to sensitive case details.
  • Rule-based alarms: From simple intrusions (a vessel entering a restricted wind farm zone) to complex rules (ships recently in South America heading to Antwerp), alerts are triggered intelligently.
  • Digital procedures instead of paper manuals: Operators follow adaptive, workflow-driven playbooks (BPMN standard), ensuring consistency and reducing errors.
  • Data fusion & cleansing: Information from radar, AIS, off shore sensors, and cameras is combined and cleaned before reaching operators, avoiding overload.
  • Efficiency despite sensor explosion: As more aerial, surface, and underwater sensors come online, the system prevents a flood of alarms or the need for many extra operators by prioritizing and filtering signals.
“Before, we had to search across multiple websites for the right information. Now, all sources come together in one environment, so we only need to search once”
Operational Manager MIK

The results 


  • Faster decision-making: Operators detect and respond to incidents more quickly with relevant alarms and guided procedures.
  • Multi-agency trust: Sensitive data is shared or shielded as needed, improving cooperation between Defence, Police, Customs, and other government agencies.
  • Operational continuity: A 24/7 control room ensures continuous surveillance of Belgium’s coastal waters and off shore assets.
  • Reduced workload: Intelligent filtering avoids false alarms and data inconsistencies, keeping operator workload under control.
  • Future readiness: The platform provides a foundation for AI to further reduce false positives and detect emerging threats (such as drone activity).
  • Guaranteed reliability: Service-level agreements with e-BO ensure ongoing support, yearly upgrades, and security monitoring.

e-BO continues to co-develop new features with MIK, integrating additional sensors and preparing the platform for AI-powered anomaly detection. The partnership ensures that Belgium’s coastal defense stays resilient, efficient, and ready for the future.

Why e-BO Enterprises?

  • Proven expertise in merging multiple IT domains into one landscape.
  • Private cloud expertise with redundancy across datacenters.
  • Ability to deliver under a strict deadline.
  • Partnership approach with weekly service delivery meetings to stay aligned.
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