Rapsican Systems wins $13 million phase two STIP contract

As the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) begins to reevaluate its screening procedures in the wake of this summer’s challenges — liquid bombers and failed puffer machines being just two — it is sure to focus ever more intently on the Security Technology Integrated Program (STIP). Initiated in June, the program attempts to network all 13,000 to 15,000 airport X-ray machines and radiation and metal detectors through a centralized data processing center. The point is not to create actionable intelligence, though the possibility remains in the future, but rather to allow planners to monitor performance of the machines and their operators. TSA originally awarded OSI Systems’ (NASDAQ: OSIS) Rapsican Systems division $800,000 for phase one development. The experiment was a success, and TSA has wasted no time in moving forward with phase two: a $13.2 million deal with Rapsican to install the company’s networking software at airports nationwide.

The STIP award puts Rapsican’s in a critical position for future airport security roll-outs coming down the line. As detailed in TSA’s contracting request, the agency intends the networking software to enable the automatic downloading of software updates for all of the security hardware involved — a critical skill considering that even a single unattended glitch can shut down an airport for hours. A software bug in a single metal detection machine at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport earlier this year, for instance, set off a false alarm and resulted in a two-hour evacuation of the entire airport. Presently, most update work is done manually, as are data collection efforts that collate how often metal detectors are set off. This is obviously an intolerable situation, and our hats are off to Rapsican for this notable success in helping to curing it.

-read more in this news release; company Web site