 |
|
| Craig Eagle. |
World leading consulting company chooses BST and Eagle | Beca implement BST | Congratulations to staff | Continuing support for AUT | TV Showhomes| AgriQuality NZ implements Epicor CRM and Professional Services Solution | Supporter of the quarter awards | The benefits of GIS go public | Health information available to professionals and the public | DELTA GIS implementation a success | Lightning data now online
|
EAGLE FLYER |
||
|
|||
World leading consulting company chooses BST and Eagle
 |
|
| Eagle Technology Group's Chairman, Corallie Eagle and General Manager, Rob Waters with BST Software Inc's Delmar Warnock and Javier Baldor seated right. |
ERM is widely acknowledged as one of the world's leading providers of environmental consulting services. They deliver results for hundreds of leading industry and government organisations worldwide by helping them improve their business and environmental performance.
ERM achieves this by determining the potential implications of key issues that will affect its clients' businesses. These include new environmental regulations, consumer concerns, supply chain issues, corporate reputation and cost.
ERM has dedicated global teams providing expert services on climate change, biodiversity, waste management and corporate social strategies.
The organisation's global approach integrates more than 30 disciplines including engineering, physical science, social science, environmental health science, risk, economics, planning and management. The extensive complement of professionals across the world work together to tailor the service package to suit the needs of their clients.
ERM identified a need to consolidate its project, resource and financial management into one package as its existing system, used by 2,400 employees throughout the world is disparate, outdated and does not provide the level of control required.
When looking at alternative solutions the organisation established that its main criteria was an off-the-shelf web based solution that fitted its business model and could handle the diversity of locations and currencies inherent in the business.
ERM wanted the system to be built on the latest technology to prevent early obsolescence and allow them to build a best-of-breed solution.
| "It
saw the purchase as the first step to a long term relationship" |
As part of the selection process ERM looked at the vendors as well as the products. It saw the purchase as the first step to a long term relationship. ERM evaluated five different Professional Services Automation (PSA) solutions and chose BST Enterprise.
BST's 100 per cent web based solution allowed greater flexibility throughout the enterprise. It focused on the Professional Services Automation engineering market and had great reference sites proving it offered the required technology. Its features include:
- BST eTime management which assists company personnel to record, approve and post time for project billing, payroll and accounting purposes in an accurate, timely and efficient manner from any PC with an Internet connection at any time from any location.
- Allowing financial managers to reduce their days of sales outstanding (DSO) significantly because of reduced billing cycles, facilitated by streamlined workflow processes and real time information systems.
- Full multi-currency functionality throughout the whole system. It uses a single database for resource, project and financial management which eliminates the need for duplicate data entry and possible manual errors.
- Web-based technology which give project managers total visibility of their projects in real time, permitting a collaborative environment and the possibility to share this information with clients.
- Technology to allow the solution to be run on a significantly reduced hardware requirement.
- Providing real time consolidation as data is processed.
- The Microsoft XML framework provides the ability to add custom built or third party applications to their network and be confident they would integrate together in a streamlined fashion.
Stage one of the implementation involves ERM's head office in the United Kingdom along with its operating company in the United States. Eagle has established a United Kingdom division, lead initially by Chief Executive Officer Craig Eagle, to implement the new system there and at the same time BST will implement the new system in the United States.
The first stage is expected to be completed by February 2003 with roll-out to other regions over the next 18 months. Eagle will also be doing the Asian and Australian implementations.
Eagle Technology Chairperson Corallie Eagle says she is delighted her company has been selected to take a significant role in a worldwide implementation.
"It shows that the skills available in New Zealand are world-class and that we can compete in a global market."
Eagle Technology has the distribution rights for BST
software in New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
Contact: Rob Waters:
Email:
|
BecaCarter Hollings and Ferner Limited has implemented BST Enterprise, a web-based professional services automation solution, throughout its New Zealand operation.
Beca is New Zealand's largest privately owned multi-disciplinary engineering consulting practice. With approximately 1,200 staff Beca's head office is in Auckland with regional offices across New Zealand, companies in Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Suzhou and affiliated companies in Port Moresby and Brunei. Beca provides consulting engineering and related consultancy services to a wide range of client sectors including industrial (food and beverage, forestry, mining and metals, power systems), water and wastewater, roading and commercial building. BST Enterprise is a 100 per cent web based e-business solution developed specifically for the professional services market. It connects project, financial and employee time management processes into a multi-company, multi-currency, single, secure database environment. BST Enterprise is marketed and supported in New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom by Eagle Technology. Beca selected BST Enterprise in 2000 to replace its legacy system after an exhaustive review of solutions that were available on the international market. "We evaluated each solution and rated it against our requirements, cost, performance, and future adaptation capabilities," said Beca Executive Director Ian Bull. "BST Enterprise's project financial component and its multi-company, multi-currency processing suited us. The multi-currency processing tool helps us manage international currency transactions. The extent of Beca's off-shore activities means it may manage nine currencies on a given day," says Mr Bull. Beca implemented one of its Auckland based companies first and went live in January 2001. "Having implemented BST Enterprise for one company initially, we were able to assess the installation, make any configuration changes and train trainers before we rolled it out to our other New Zealand offices. "Today we have 850 users and as well as Auckland, sites include our Wellington, Tauranga, Hamilton, New Plymouth, Christchurch and Dunedin offices. "Being web based and accessed via a browser makes deployment of BST Enterprise to remote locations feasible. We have two project offices where the staff can access BST Enterprise. These will be disconnected as the projects wind up but others will be connected as required," says Mr Bull. "The great thing about the Internet based solution is when staff are travelling within New Zealand or internationally, they can access project information and complete timesheets from their laptops. "Our project managers now all have access to real time project financial information which allows them to better control their project outcomes and gives senior managers the opportunity to identify developing problems earlier," said Mr Bull. Now that Beca has completed the first phase of its implementation in New Zealand the company is assessing the feasibility of rolling it out to other companies in the group. BST Enterprise is based on Microsoft's Distributed Network Architecture methodology and tool set and is deployed at Beca on a quad processor Hewlett Packard/Intel server and SQL Server database. Contact: Evan Steers |
|
Congratulations to staff |
||||
| Congratulations to Duane Eagle, Dave Gibson, Doug Fraser and Glenn Secker who recently qualified as Citrix sales professionals. Congratulations are also due to Robert Hui on attaining a remarkable 100% pass mark for Microsoft Design & Implementing for both Desktop Applications and Distributed Applications in VB6. Denis Keal put in many hours of study to attain a MCDBA (Microsoft Certified Database Administrator) qualification. Congratulations Denis on this tremendous achievement. Congratulations also to Cameron Pascoe,
Miguel Rojas and Prabhakar Rao for passing
the Citrix Metaframe XP 1.0 exam which gives them Citrix CCA certification.
They also passed Citrix NFuse 1.51 Administration examination and
Prabahakar passed the Citrix Enterprise Administrator giving him
CCEA certification. |
||||
|
TV ShowHomes
 |
|
| Eagle Technology Manager Strategic Data, Grant Williams (left) and James Hardie's Market Segment Manager, Matthew Woodley. |
When James Hardie needed a partner to host its technical support documentation on the Internet, which could also offer web site design, implementation and publishing it chose Eagle Technology. Eagle's Strategic Data is a portal that has been designed for building professionals through to home-do-it-yourselfers.
James Hardie, a global leader in the manufacture of building materials has major operations in New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the Philippines. For the last 60 years the company has been committed to being the best in the building industry in New Zealand.
As part of a significant review of James Hardie's communications plan, and its on-going commitment to providing its customers with quality, timely product information, James Hardie sought to extend its offerings via the web.
TVShowHomes (90 second TV programmes) are one part of a three-piece plan; the web page is another and the double-page advertisements in 'Your Home and Garden' magazine, the third.
| "As
well as the page, Eagle built an email response system" |
TVShowHomes can be seen on TV One on Tuesdays through to Saturday between 7.30pm and 7.40pm. The programmes promote homes that have been finished using James Hardie's fibre cement products including its latest offerings Monotek and Linea.
"New home buyers, our target market, get shown around an attractive new home, informed what products have been used and invited to find out more by visiting the website www.tvshowhomes.co.nz," says James Hardie's Market Segment Manager Matthew Woodley.
"The page features a new home each week and the past week's homes are archived and prospects can check them out ensuring they are well informed on all our products quickly and easily.
"Fibre cement can be very boring on its own. What we have done is show the new home buyer what can be done with the product and how attractive it can look. We also want people to see their new James Hardie home as helping to define their lifestyle.
"The web site is busiest each night after the TV programmes are shown until about 10.00pm. Our research shows we get an average of 24,000 visits a week with 730 unique user sessions (the visitor signed in) averaging eight minutes. Our latest figures indicate that 90 percent of our new business leads come from this source," says Mr Woodley.
"The magazine's double page advertisement featuring one of the new homes seen on TV also points readers to the web page. It has a direct phone number for those who don't have access to the Internet or prefer this form of communication.
"As well as the page, Eagle built an email response system that ensures we provide the client with timely information," says Mr Woodley.
Eagle Technology Account Manager Grant Williams says, "The email response engine is in the form of ASP (Microsoft Active Server Page) which uses a CDONTS email connection.
"Registrations/submissions are stored in a SQLServer database and James Hardie staff follow-up prospects a couple of weeks later to ensure they have all the information they need. Any further information, such as when they hope to build, is also stored.
"Eagle has been designing and implementing a data warehouse for James Hardie so in the future it can access, sort and mine data establishing trends for sales activities," says Mr Williams.
Mr Woodley says the website was a very cost effective project. Eagle replicated the Strategic Data page template and standardised all TVShowHomes pages so each new offering is in the same style as previous ones making sure only the minimum was spent on the design.
"The site took only a month from start to completion because the James Hardie team had established the "look" (design and graphics) they wanted to achieve and the desired outcomes," says Mr Williams.
"They trusted Strategic Data as a product and appreciated the experience Eagle has gained in the building industry market sector. They gave us the latitude to introduce features and back end functionality that would bring dynamic content to the site reliably and quickly.
Strategic Data is consistently in the top 10 websites accessed by New Zealanders in the Business and Finance, Building and Construction Categories. Any business wanting an effective presence in this vertical should consider Eagle's Strategic Data. The portal offers complete websites and marketing initiatives through to assistance in presenting technical data to specifiers.
 |
Contact: Grant Williams
Email:
AgriQuality NZ implements Epicor CRM and Professional Services Solution
AgriQuality NZ has recently implemented Epicor's eFrontOffice customer relationship management solution and eProject professional services automation solution.
Eagle Technology, Epicor's business partner in New Zealand, assisted in the implementation and provided data conversion and consulting services to integrate the Epicor products with AgriQuality's existing back-office environment.
AgriQuality New Zealand Ltd is a relatively new player on the agribusiness scene and its pedigree can be traced as far back as 1892 when by amalgamating the Stock and Agricultural branches of the Department of Crown Lands, the New Zealand Department of Agriculture was formed.
In 1972 the Fisheries Management and Fisheries Research division of the Marine Department combined with the Department of Agriculture to form the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Further restructuring in 1972 and 1987 followed, and finally on 1 November 1998, AgriQuality New Zealand Ltd was born.
Its prime focus is to provide testing and certification services to producers, processors, manufacturers, retailers and exporters in the agri-food business. As well, AgriQuality plays a key role in protecting New Zealand from bio-security risks.
To support the new operation, a need was identified to establish systems to better manage its relationship with customers and the management of resources, time recording and jobs.
In February 2002 after evaluating a number of potential solutions AgriQuality entered into a contract with Eagle Technology to implement a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and project time recording and billing system from software solution provider Epicor Software including their eFrontOffice and eProject modules.
eProject was implemented to enable field consultants and technicians to establish jobs and projects and record time against these and subsequently bill its clients, while eFrontOffice supported the functions of the Customer Service Centre to handle client communications and support its training operation.
Being able to take customer instructions through its Customer Service Centre and have the job established in eProject and assigned to a field officer was a prime requirement said Roger Clearwater, Eagle's Project Manager.
"Having an integrated end to end solution was our goal."
Field consultants and technicians can access the system via a web browser to enter jobs and time to initiate the billing process.
Additionally, eFrontOffice supports the management of AgriQuality's training operation from booking courses, organisation and management of resources, billing, recording student results and issuing certificates.
AgriQuality went live on the new system at the end of June and eProject has been rolled out progressively through business units over the last few months.
 |
Visiting Eagle from left are AgriQuality's General Manager Information Technology, Peter Winquist, Manager Customer Services, Tracey van Delden, Systems Accountant, Hayley New and Eagle's Project Manager, Roger Clearwater. |
Contact: Evan Steers
Email:
Supporter of the quarter awards |
||||||||
Congratulations to Nick Robinson. Nick was awarded Supporter of the First Quarter 2002 for his dedication and 'can do' attitude, which is illustrated in the following nomination.
Eagle's GIS division won a contract with an electrical utility for the supply of a GIS, which required a number of customisations. It was a strategic win as Eagle competed against the incumbent. However, there was a large performance penalty if the deadline for commissioning the system was not met. Nick Robinson, a senior consultant and unflappable in nature was appointed project leader. He guided the project smoothly through to the final milestone acceptance testing. Unfortunately we cannot predict what is around the corner or in this case on the next floor? Directly above the computer room were toilets which chose the weekend prior to the Monday's acceptance testing to flood. As the servers were not ordered to submarine specification everything was ruined. Nick had the unenviable task of minimising the delay incurred. That night people who were in the area at 3am would have seen our Nick being interviewed by the building's security people as he had set off the alarm. He had stayed half the night to build a RAID system and was unaware the security system did not allow for after hours work Unflappable to the end he made sure that full system functionality was restored for acceptance testing.
Congratulations also to Vasili Kiselev for being awarded Supporter of the 2nd Quarter 2002. Vasili, an Uninterruptible Power Supply engineer and Eagle employee for over 4 years, received this award for his 'can do' attitude in installing and maintaining UPS equipment. Vasili willingly handled the 7x24 call out cover as well as the installation of a new model UPS and the day-to-day requirements of the job during a very busy period. His dedication meant he worked long hours and gave up much of his time over weekends. Well done Vasili. |
With the growing popularity of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software organisations can provide important information, in a map format that is intuitive to use, and available to the public freely over the Internet.
Traditionally, the benefits of GIS, have been restricted to those who have access to data, software and specialised training. Now that is changing.
There is growing awareness among data providers that GIS data represents a resource and should be made available to stakeholders, both inside and outside the organisation.
Three organisations using Environmental Systems Research Institute's ArcIMS Server GIS software are the New Zealand Public Health Observatory, (NZPHO), DELTA Utility Services and MetService . Each have each implemented programmes enabling the public to tap into selected databases and examine data that affects their daily lives (note: the MetService programme is a fee-based service). More importantly, for the NZPHO project, multiple organisations have joined together to provide their datasets in a common format allowing anyone with Internet access to tap into a wealth of health and statistical information.
Just a few years ago, to have that capability would have cost thousands of dollars and weeks of hard work assembling the various components. Today it is just a few mouse clicks away. The promise of GIS, the idea that access to the information that shapes our lives should be made available to the people it most affects, is now a possibility.
Environmental Systems Research Institute's ArcIMS Server GIS software is distributed in New Zealand by Eagle Technology which is very pleased to be a part of this information revolution.
These organisations are in the vanguard of a new chapter
in public information access and will no doubt be joined by others in
the very near future.
Health information available to professionals and the public
The NZPHO site uses Internet and GIS technologies to make visual population and health information widely available. The virtual nature of NZPHO allows organisations with stewardship responsibility for population and health information in New Zealand to efficiently share key data with collaborators, stakeholders and the public.
Already healthcare professionals are taking advantage of the NZPHO service.
| "We
anticipate having up to 100 regular users from at least 30 organisations" |
"We anticipate having up to 100 regular users from at least 30 organisations," says Chris Skelly, Senior Advisor for the NZPHO project. "These include analysts from District Health Boards as well as other members of the New Zealand healthcare community who will be using the information to assist with their planning and monitoring activities."
The site is also open to the general public and students, so that they can better understand the health status of their own communities and use this as a basis for informed discussion and debate."
The NZPHO project, which was officially launched by the Minister of Health, Hon Annette King, is a collaborative project in every sense of the word. Two enabling organisations have made this site possible: the Institute for Environmental Science and Research (ESR) and the New Zealand Health Information Service (NZHIS). The Institute is the steward for communicable disease and environmental health surveillance data and the NZHIS is the steward for mortality data, the cancer registry and hospital discharge information.
Contextual information is provided by Statistics New Zealand (demographic data and census geographic data), the Department of Public Health, Wellington School of Medicine (NZDep96) with the Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) has provided topographic data. Eagle Technology Group has provided the specialised GIS expertise that underlies the project as well as the ArcView GIS software from ESRI. Eagle is also hosting the NZPHO website (www.nzpho.govt.nz).
The NZPHO initiative is the second phase of the Ministry of Health's overall health care information delivery strategy. "We set up our first site in 1998," says Mr Skelly, "that dealt exclusively with communicable disease notification. Called the Public Health Early Warning (PHEW!) system, it has given us valuable experience that has gone into the design of the current site.
"The tools have got much better as well."
One of the exciting aspects of the NZPHO initiative is that it is one of the first implementations of ESRI's new g.net--an innovative architecture for sharing and using GIS information from distributed sources. By combining the innate capabilities of Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI), ArcIMS 4 and ArcGIS, host organisations can serve as clearinghouses of diverse information sources and serve the information out into the community.
"By making the data available to more people we can improve the data quality," says Mr Skelly.
"The more people who use the data, the more feedback is generated. This results in cleaner data. Key to all of this is metadata, or information about the information."
Craig Eagle says, "With distributed data sources and remote users, metadata is more important than ever.
"Traditionally, the data stewards, providers and users were, if not the same people, at least in the same organisation.
"They were acutely aware of the limitations of the data and which applications could be realistically supported. But now with clearinghouses such as NZPHO, the data must be meticulously documented in order for end-users to make appropriate decisions on which data sets can support which analyses. The ArcIMS Metadata Server makes this easy."
Mr Eagle represented Eagle at the Ministry of Health
NZPHO project launch where he said the project was a fine example of how
geography can be the common key to intergrating databases.
Contact: Peng Aik Lim
Email:
DELTA GIS Implementation a success
DELTA
Utility Services's GIS programme is on track with the completion of all
data conversion from the two legacy systems, the introduction of iPAQ
handhelds for field data capture and access, and a trial public online
access to selected datasets.
"We have some 45 regular users of the GIS-based asset management system within DELTA," says DELTA Utility Services Business Services Manager Lindsay McLennan, "and it is proving to be very popular.
"We've found that the system is especially useful for smaller additions where field-staff can update the central database from their handhelds. This process saves us editing costs and, because we have built in a combination manual/automated data validation process, enhances the accuracy of the data."
For field access, DELTA currently has two HP iPAQ handhelds running ArcPAD data capture and access software with plans to expand in the future.
"The ability to take the system into the field has reduced the need for people to return to base for plans and therefore cut down on our travel costs," says Mr McLennan.
"We can display our service maps on the handheld screen and query the database for further information from the field. So far the people who've seen the process work are impressed with the power of the system.
"We're also the first electric utility in NZ to put some of our maps online for public access," says Mr McLennan.
"Using the ArcIMS Server, we've set up a web site (http://www.del2.co.nz/website/DeltaUtilityServices/viewer.htm) where people can access online maps of poles, lines, cables, roads and other features from any browser.
"Even though the data behind the map features is simply a subset of the full database, we've already received favourable feedback from some of the local councils and other users."
Eagle Technology Group has provided assistance with
programme implementation and has provided the GIS software. Other GIS
software products in use by DELTA include ArcView for analytical and modelling
purposes and Miner & Miner's ArcFM Designer, which offers utility-specific
tools to help maintain and support design and planning of the network.
Contact: Peng Aik Lim
Email:
 |
|
Peter Fisher Metservice Market Manager |
Lightning strikes can cause significant damage. In the United States, lightning strikes are the number two causes of death during storms, after floods, causing more fatalities than hurricanes or tornadoes combined. Lightning also causes about US$5 billion of economic loss each year.
In New Zealand, the numbers aren't as great, but lightning strikes are still a major concern for a wide variety of interested parties.
"We have been very pleased with the response to our new lightning information service," says MetService Market Manager Peter Fisher.
"We have clients in the energy sector, manufacturing, mining, aviation, land management, tourism, telecommunications and even America's Cup weather teams."
The service, called MetStrike, provides a wealth of near real time lightning data to interested parties, either via an online GIS a GIS interface for instant analysis (called MetStrikeWEB) or as a downloadable GIS-compatible database (called MetStrikeDATA). Two other services, MetStrikeALERT, alerts clients of strikes near designated locations, such as power transformers or navigation aids and MetStrikeREPORT, which is a strike verification report designed primarily for the insurance industry.
The lightning data itself is captured from a nationwide network of lightning detector sensors that directly feed into MetService's main data repository in Kelburn, Wellington. The sensors detect electromagnetic pulses and are extremely sensitive... they can generally locate the strike to within 500-600 metres and within 50 nanoseconds of strike time.
The data is then processed and sent to Eagle Technology
Group via FTP for distribution, either via the web or direct transmission.
Online data is displayed overlaid on top of a detailed topographic map
and the user can pan and zoom into locations as well as query each location
for specific information about each strike, eg. time, intensity, angle,
etc. Eagle hosts the GIS-enabled website and helped develop the interfaces
and back-end systems. The GIS component is based on Environmental Systems
Research Institute's (ESRI) ArcIMS Server product.
Contact: Parker Jones
Email: