Government boosts supply chain offering
Dayang Electronic Manufacturing managing director Robert Peacock said the grant -- made under the Information Technology Online (ITOL) program -- meant the current "nibbling away" could be replaced by a more organised approach. Development of the 'Viewpoint' system kicked off on 1 February.
"The money gives a lot of stability to the project where funds can be allocated for specific expenditure, we are not fighting for cash flow," he said.
Viewpoint is designed to integrate the business processes of Dayang's partners and customers through a shared database.
Peacock said most of its customers and suppliers have limited resources to invest in complex enterprise resource planning systems, which would allow them to access critical information such as when an electronic component was used and what job it was used on.
"In a manufacturing environment, there's lots of information which could be beneficial to our customers which they don't get access to," Peacock said. "Working in one database means a lot of info becomes available to customers".
He expects the pilot project to be operational within 12 months. The company's eventual intention is to make the product more broadly available.
"At the moment, the initial developed software will be used by the school cluster with Dayang as centre," he said. "Once it's been proven, we can then commercialise the software and start other clusters".
Viewpoint is just one of four projects which received funding under the ITOL initiative. Others include an e-notification system being developed by the Cancer Institute of NSW; an interactive Web site for scheduling and administering locum doctors in rural New South Wales; and improving procurement for independent retailers and wholesalers in Tasmania. The total grant amounted to AU$683,000.