Townsville Port takes content management shipment

Townsville Port Authority (TPA) has in the past few months bedded down a new content management system (CMS) implementation, aiming to improve information management and meet government compliance requirements.

TPA is a government-owned corporation created in 1995 to manage the Port of Townsville -- a land and sea jurisdiction in excess of 400 square kilometres. The group's Web site states it has over 70 employees. Each year some 700 ships pass through the port.

The new system has several uses, according to a statement issued this morning by the project's vendor, Objective.

"TPA is using Objective to provide a corporate information repository to support effective information management and manage a range of physical and electronic information such as engineering drawings, plans and digital pictures used for construction and maintenance projects including new berths and buildings," the statement said.

"The enterprise-wide implementation supports a broad spectrum of disciplines including engineering design and supervision, capital expansion and maintenance, corporate governance, planning and environment, finance, Port services, business development, and marketing."

The statement added the authority required a solution to support compliance with the Queensland Public Records Act of 2002 as well as the state's information standards 31, 30, 41 and 42.

TPA's chief executive Barry Holden said in the statement that Objective was chosen "because it was a single solution with a proven track record in operating effectively in comparable environments".

Holden added the TPA expected the implementation to help the group become more responsive to "establishing effectual changes and improvements" within its operations.

Several other organisations to recently contract Objective as a CMS vendor include the Western Australian Police and the NSW Department of Natural Resources.