Airports operator BAA has plans to implement a new enterprise resource planning system.
It has put out a contract notice, looking for suppliers to sign up to a 10 year deal. It has not disclosed the budget it will allocate to the project.
The company, which runs a number of airports including Heathrow and Southampton, wants to improve processes with the ERP system. But the rollout could be complicated by the fact it is being forced by the government to sell off Gatwick, Stansted, and Edinburgh or Glasgow airports, over the next two years, as a result of competition concerns.
The ERP rollout will be the "main focus" of a "back office improvement project", BAA wrote in the contract notice. That project also includes human resource management, procurement, finance and commercial systems.
BAA said the new ERP system must link to other key off-the-shelf and legacy systems it runs, including business intelligence, resource and asset management, commercial systems, and airport operational software. It is considering hosted and on-premise systems.
Separately, BAA has issued a contract for hosted messaging and collaboration software. Suppliers have until 11 May to register their interest for either deal.
A year ago, BAA and airliner British Airways' systems came under fire when at the opening of Heathrow Airport thousands of travellers' bags were delayed after a string of IT problems. In November, the Commons Transport Select Committee said the systems had not been tested properly.
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