Eagle Flyer - May 2001

EAGLE FLYER

NEWS FROM EAGLE TECHNOLOGY GROUP

MAY 2001

Continuing Eagle's Culture

Craig Eagle (left) and Rob Waters enjoying their new work environment at Alexander Park

Chairman of the Eagle Technology Group Board of Directors Corallie Eagle has appointed Craig Eagle to Eagle Technology Group Chief Executive Officer and Rob Waters to Eagle Technology Group General Manager. Both Craig and Rob intend to continue the culture created by Craig's father, the late Trevor Eagle, of strong leadership, excellence, customer focus and empathy with all stakeholders.

Data Warehousing and OLAP Technology for Toyota Financial Services

Data warehousing technology using Microsoft's SQL Server 7.0 with Online Analytical Processing Services (OLAP) has enabled Toyota Financial Services to extract data, and provide internal ad hoc reporting and business intelligence to its dealers and other stakeholders.

The company had been facing one of today's typical business problems, that of extracting useful information in disparate systems without the tools to mine and analyse the data.

Toyota Financial Services' core application, a legacy system written in Cobol and running on Unix, did not allow for ad hoc reporting without the help of a Cobol programmer. The process required extensive programming to extract the required data before it could be interpreted and laboriously put into reports. With 46 dealers on its network providing individualised paper-based reports it was time consuming and costly.

Toyota Financial Services had also implemented specifically written software for financial quoting and had installed a SAP system for internal financial and accounting requirements.

The data warehousing solution involves consolidating, cleansing and summarising information from heterogeneous sources for data analysis. It also helps users understand information and identify patterns, trends and insights leading to better business decisions.

"Eagle suggested a pilot trial initially to enable Toyota Financial Services to evaluate the solution," said Eagle Technology Senior Technical Consultant Jon Wakely.

"A pilot involves less outlay up-front and the client can identify early the return on investment and if its requirements have been met."

"Traditionally data ware-housing projects tended to be expensive to implement and the return on investment difficult to ascertain.

"Once the pilot trial was accepted, the project was expanded to include other aspects of the business and we modified the existing data structures for better alignment to the users' requirements.

John Wakely (left) and Paul Haaker (center) of Eagle, with Matthew Lucas of Toyota Financial Services admire Matthew's Toyota Celica.

"One of the key aspects of the Eagle Technology Group and Microsoft Consulting Services approach was designing an interface that did not require extensive installation and user training.

"This was achieved using web browser technology for standard reports with OLAP cube 'slicing and dicing,' and Microsoft Excel for power users requiring higher level reporting.

"This approach does not preclude the use of other client tools for access," says Mr Wakely.

"Now Toyota Financial Services is regularly providing detailed internal reports to all departments," says Toyota Financial Services, development group member Matthew Lucas.

"Linking our transactional system with the financial quoting system and having the ability to view reports in different ways means Toyota Financial Services understands better its customer base, markets and stakeholders."

Plans to upgrade to SQL Server 2000 are being considered along with implementing an extranet data mining and adding more sophisticated modelling tools.

Contact Paul Haaker
email:

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Trevor John Eagle

Trevor Eagle died suddenly on 9 December 2000 leaving his wife and business partner Corallie, six of his seven children and five grandchildren.

Trevor and Corallie Eagle's company Eagle Technology Group Limited is one of New Zealand's largest and most successful privately owned information technology companies.

Even in his teens Trevor showed signs of what was to come. At age 18 he represented New Zealand in swimming at the 1950's Empire Games, and in his early 30s, during his second year at IBM, he was top performing sales person in Asia Pacific.

In 1969 Trevor left IBM to set up his own company, International Data Limited which offered punch card bureau, consulting and education services. He formed other companies along the way offering products such as uninterruptible power supplies, bank security cameras, automatic teller machines, banking terminals and communications equipment. Trevor also secured New Zealand's sole distributorship for Prime mini-computer systems.

His business activities grew significantly and in 1984 Trevor and his wife Corallie formed Eagle Technology Group. The group gathered under one banner a great range of specialist and high technology companies. It evolved into a true systems integrator and also established itself as a leader in geographic information systems (GIS).

Currently Eagle operates a nationwide network and has an office in Australia.
At the time of Trevor's death he was the chairman of twelve companies, ten of which come under Eagle Technology Group Limited.
His interest in business extended outside his own group and as the chairman of the New Zealand High/Tech Council he was a strong advocate for the knowledge economy.

For many years he had taken a leading role in the information technology industry and was a former president of ITANZ, the Information Technology Association of New Zealand, and former chairman of the Computer Software Industry Joint Action Group. He was also a current committee member of the Technology New Zealand Advisory Board and lobbied vigorously for changes in the tax laws relating to research and development investment. It's sad to think that only three months after his death, the New Zealand government made many of the changes Trevor had been advocating.

Trevor also contributed significantly to other science, education, community and environmental organisations as chairman of the UNITEC Honours Board, a member of the Massey University Auckland Regional Advisory Board, the NERF Advisory Committee and New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development. He was also a former Auckland Area Chairman of the Duke of Edinburgh Award and a former trustee and current fellow of the Worldwide Fund for Nature.

Trevor never lost his interest in swimming and maintained a long-standing commitment to the success of the Auckland Central Masters harbour swims.
His other interests included the thoroughbred horse racing industry and rugby. Since 1986 Eagle Technology Group has sponsored the Counties Racing Club. Eagle Sports, a revolutionary database which records rugby statistics highlighted Trevor's interest in rugby."Trevor Eagle was particularly respected by past and present staff of Eagle Technology Group," says Denis O'Callahan who worked with him for almost 25 years.

"He and Corallie took a personal interest in everyone and really made them feel part of the family. Many benefited from Trevor's mentoring and his door was always open to those with problems, business or personal.

"Everyone who worked with Trevor will never forget his boundless energy and enthusiasm, his forthright opinions and his hospitality. Leadership on this level is rare and it has been a privilege to experience."

Massey "goes live" with FMIS

Back row left to right: Massey University Director Strategic Finance and Planning, Kerry Jaques, Eagle Technology Business Consultant, Chris Highet, Massey University Director Information Technology, Gerrit Bahlman, Eagle Technology Finance One Consultant, Roger Clearwater, Massey University Project Administrator, Bee-Choon Neo and Massey University Project Manager, Heather Tootell. Front row: Massey University Vice Chancellor, Professor James McWha (left) and Eagle Technology Founder, the late Trevor Eagle.

In May 2000 Massey University signed a contract with Eagle Technology Group Limited for the supply, implementation and support of the Finance One product as the university's finance system.

Massey University went to the market seeking a university focused, up-to-date and scalable central finance solution to meet the changing business and environmental needs of managers and management in a multi-campus organisation. Common financial systems did not serve the university across the various campuses.

In 1999 a Steering Group was set up at Massey University for the project, comprising members from all colleges and campuses. This was headed by Kerry Jaques (Director Strategic Finance and Planning) as the project sponsor.

A project working group undertook a detailed selection process over 15 months involving staff from all areas within the university. This selection process included:

Consultation meetings with finance system users from across the university.

An open tender process.
Analysis and evaluation of a significant number of proposals.
A full day presentation by each short listed vendor, to which all staff were invited.
Extensive reference checking including site visits for each supplier and independent benchmarking.
A series of hands-on sessions on the preferred system, for staff from all campuses that have direct access to the current university finance systems.

Mr Jaques commented at that time. "After an extensive selection process we believe that the Finance One product is the solution which will provide the best fit for the university's current and future finance system requirements. We look forward to working with Eagle Technology, our implementation partners, in providing a system that meets the needs of our progressive multi-campus university".

Eagle Technology was obviously delighted to be selected for such significant business after such an extensive evaluation process. Eagle's Chris Highet commented, "From day one we enjoyed the company of the Massey people and their way of doing business. However, we knew we had to earn our stripes and authenticate our total offering. Massey was very deliberate in its process and evaluated our product set and company credentials very carefully."

Following the signing of the contract Eagle Technology was deployed in a rigorous and detailed implementation project. Eagle's Roger Clearwater headed up the implementation team. A phased implementation was chosen to allow system users to become familiar with areas of the product, while ensuring sufficient training and support were available within limited project resources.

Bearing testimony to a successful project, Massey University went live with phase one of the project, as planned, on 1 January 2001. The FMIS is now used at Massey's three campuses in Albany, Palmerston North and Wellington via a Central server in Palmerston North with a Citrix infrastructure. This phase of the project has proven to be entirely successful. Massey University is now preparing for phase two which involves the implementation of the purchasing module and Eagle once again will be involved in this implementation.

Contact: Chris Highet:
Email:

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The GIS in Schools Programme

Eagle Technology Group Limited is the official distributor of Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) Geographical Information System (GIS) software in New Zealand. In order to promote awareness of this technology, Eagle sponsors the GIS in Schools Programme.

Eagle provides each school in the programme with free ESRI
K-12 software, which includes unlimited copies of PC ArcView, Network Analyst, Spatial Analyst and 3D Analyst. The schools and the sponsors also receive free New Zealand Topographic Data.

Rosehill College is one of the most recent schools to join the programme. Pictured with its Principal Bali Haque (right) and Rosehill's Steve McConchie are Eagle's GIS Business Unit Manager Bruce Harold (left) and sponsors Landcare Research's Debra Emmett.

Each year Eagle invites its GIS users to nominate schools that have shown an interest in the GIS curriculum. If the nomination is successful the user is then promoted as sponsor of the school. To be a sponsor, a user must be committed to helping the school. In turn, to be sponsored, the school must have the means to implement a GIS curriculum and must show a genuine interest in teaching it.

The sponsor undertakes to support the school in any way that ensures the successful implementation of a GIS curriculum. This can be in the form of technical assistance, supplying data, offering training to teachers and pupils, providing a "help line" and assistance with projects.

In 1999 there were 11 schools participating in the programme and today there are 26.

Contact: Bruce Harold
email:

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FMIS and ESRI's GIS - Perfect Partners

Network Tasman Accounting Manager, Gary Breakspeare.

An integrated Geographical Information System (GIS) and financial management information system (FMIS) have revolutionised the way utility asset management company Network Tasman Limited records and manages its assets. Network Tasman is a trust-owned asset management and electricity distribution company, that distributes electricity to approximately 30,000 consumers throughout the Nelson and Tasman region, excluding Nelson city. It manages approximately $100 million of assets, including poles, transformers, switches and distribution lines.

Key to Network Tasman's requirements was the need for a modern flexible and robust financial information system. Typically network companies have separate asset systems for engineering and financial record keeping. Keeping these systems synchronised and consistent is a complex requirement. Network Tasman was seeking a business solution that integrated its financial asset records system and provided a spatially driven asset management system.

The Eagle solution has met this requirement by integrating ESRI's ArcInfo geographic information systems with an Eagle supplied financial management information system on a single server.

Engineers will be able to click and point on a network asset located on a map and instantly access asset data. Accountants will have the confidence that once an asset is commissioned it will be located and maintained in the spatial database in a manner consistent with financial records. Integration was a key milestone in the Network Tasman project and Eagle delivered to the customer's expectations.

Peng Aik Lim, Eagle GIS account manager said "We recommended integrating two software solutions - ESRI's ArcInfo GIS and Finance One FMIS, and as both solutions comply to open standards they provided an excellent solution.

Integration was a key milestone in the Network Tasman project and Eagle delivered to the customer's expectations.

"ArcInfo provides the tools for automation, modification, management, analysis, and display of the geographic information. ArcSDE, ESRI's Spatial Database Engine allows spatial data to be stored within a relational database management system of choice and ArcView software allows easy integration of data from all parts of the organisation.

"The use of a sophisticated executive information system and COM Objects based reporting tools facilitates quick and easy retrieval of information," commented Eagle's FMIS Business consultant, Chris Highet.

Back office financial modules recommended to Network Tasman included accounts payable, accounts receivable, asset management, budgeting forecasting, cash accounting, general ledger and graphical report writer.

"We recommended a SQL server database platform, NT operating systems and a Compaq Intel server as the underlying information technology infrastructure," says Mr Lim.

"We also needed a solution that was future proof," says Accounting Manager Gary Breakspeare who, along with Network Manager Murray Hedrickson, managed the project for Network Tasman. Their combined expertise provided the unified view of user requirements that contributed very significantly to the success of the project.

"We were impressed with the financial solution's Executive Information Systems' e-commerce capabilities. We see in future being able to exchange information with our maintenance people and have our suppliers pick up orders, action them and receive payment through the Internet," says Mr Breakspeare.

"As Eagle distributed and supported both the GIS and FMIS solution, it could guarantee absolute integration and a speedy installation which was a huge advantage to us," says Mr Breakspeare.

The installation took only three months and the Eagle team spent less than two weeks on Network Tasman's premises.

"The integrated systems went live in early December 2000, and the team delivered to the agreed timetable and budget. Our dealings with Eagle went very smoothly. They were professional and easy to deal with," says Mr Breakspeare.

Phase two of the project will be the implementation of the United States based Miner & Miner's ArcFM Energy Extension to ArcInfo. This will add more sophistication to the system including automation of business rules, connectivity rules, objects behaviour and versioning. ArcFM Energy has proven to be a very popular extension to ArcInfo, and it is currently being adopted at other sites in New Zealand.

Contacts: Peng Aik Lim
Email:

Chris Highet
Email:

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Meritec Group choose BST Enterprise and Eagle Technology

The Meritec Group has chosen BST Enterprise software and Eagle Technology as its Professional Services Automation solution provider.

Meritec was established in New Zealand in 1918 as Worley Consultants and subsequently extended its operation throughout Australia and South East Asia. The diversified group, renamed Meritec in September 2000, now has 400 employees and has expanded to South America and parts of Europe.

Signing the contract are Eagle Technology Chairman Corallie Eagle and Meritec Financial Controller, Peter Fromont.

In addition to the original engineering and architectural operations, the company has evolved into a group specialising in complementary services in infrastructure management, information technology, systems design, and environmental planning.

Today Meritec is one of the largest employee-owned firms of its kind. It has a multi-disciplinary capability and a deep knowledge of the business, political and economic structures of the regions in which it operates.

With the company's significant growth and globalisation, Meritec recognised that its 10 year old legacy system no longer supported its business operations and strategic direction.

"In order to achieve our business goals, which include delivering the best service to our clients, we needed a best of breed world class system," said Meritec's Financial Controller, Peter Fromont

After evaluating available options, Meritec subsequently selected BST Enterprise as its professional service automation solution from BST Consultants. The organisation, situated in Tampa, Florida, has specialised in solutions for the engineering, architectural, and consulting sector since 1978.

BST Enterprise is marketed and supported in New Zealand and Australia by Eagle Technology who will assist Meritec through the implementation process.

BST Enterprise is a 100 per cent web based e-business solution. It connects project, financial, and employee time management processes into a multi-company, multi-currency and secure single database environment.

Eagle Technology Account Manager Evan Steers commented that the key benefit of BST Enterprise was that it provides a best practices solution specific to the business needs of Meritec.

"Its architecture provides for 7 X 24 access from anywhere in the world via a web browser. The benefits of this are the simplicity of deploying the application, and the subsequent low cost of ownership," says Mr Steers.

Meritec will implement the BST Enterprise suite on a Hewlett-Packard/NT platform with Microsoft SQL Server database. Live processing will commence from July.

"Meritec's relationship with Eagle Technology spans over 20 years and we are well aware of the high standard of service the group provides," says Meritec's Peter Fromont.

"Eagle's commitment to the BST Enterprise solution and our knowledge of its service standards gives us confidence that the implementation and support of the solution will be successful."

Contact: Evan Steers
Email:

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Eagle Sponsorship

Eagle spans it sponsorship wings to include thoroughbreds, community sport and the arts.

Pictured is Sellotape Products New Zealand's Peter Hutson being presented with his prize by Corallie Eagle after winning the sweepstake on The Eagle Technology Counties Cup held in November at Counties Racing Club. Eagle hosted 300 guests to a day of fun at the races.

Eagle sponsored a night at Opera New Zealand's Die Fledermouse in October.

Captured chatting to Corallie Eagle at the pre-performance cocktail function are: Eagle's Corallie Eagle (right) and Meritec Group's Peter Fromont with a member of the cast.

Eagle Technology sponsors two of the four Auckland Central Masters Harbour Swims; the Bay's Swim and the Rangitoto Swim. Jeremy Gray, who first set his sights on competing in the harbour swims in 1995, won both swims this year.

Jeremy also won the Bay's Swim last year. Congratulations Jeremy. Jeremy is pictured being presented with the Bays Swim Cup by Eagle's Craig Eagle after finishing the 3.21km harbour swim in the fastest time.

The power behind The Rings

Movie fans throughout the world are excited about New Zealand director Peter Jackson's three-film screen adaptation of J.R.R.Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy for New Line Cinema.
Shooting has just been completed at locations all over the country, with many famous actors taking the lead roles and hundreds of extras being deployed. Post-production is now in full swing at Weta Digital Limited where amazing special effects and animation is being created.
Weta At the Weta studios, teams of animators and computer graphics specialists work with Silicon Graphics computer systems in one of the largest and most advanced facilities in the world.
It is vital that these computers are protected from power disturbances, since any interruption of the processing would lead to the loss of many hours of work and result in missing important production deadlines.
The Weta facilities are protected by Uninterruptible Power Supply systems supplied by Eagle Technology Group, with the first Deltec 40 kVA unit being installed in 1995 as Weta geared up for the production of "The Frighteners" in 1996. As Weta have ramped up capacity to handle larger and more complex productions such as The Lord of the Rings, Eagle's Wellington UPS specialist Graham Blackmore has installed three more Powerware UPS, one 60 kVA and two 30 kVA systems.
Eagle is proud to be associated with Weta, an outstanding example of a New Zealand company which has built on local expertise to become world renowned in the entertainment industry.
Contact: Denis O'Callahan
Email:

Congratulations to members of our services team who have added to their qualifications since October 2000.

Steven Pyne and Prabhakar Rao attained Certified Citrix Enterprise Administrator certification.

Andrew Doull attained a Cisco Certified Network Associate. Andrew also has a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer qualification.

Michael Barton and Dave Chandler attained Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer qualification.

Simon Watt-Wyness attained Cisco Certified Design Associate.

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