NGIS

ForMS (Forestry Management System) is an innovative, far-reaching business management solution developed to meet the rapid growth needs of the largest public company in Australia's agribusiness sector.

Great Southerns challenge

In early 2004, Great Southern recognised that, as a result of their rapid growth, their silo-business systems (GIS, Work Order system, accounting and environmental management systems) no longer provided an adequate means of managing plantations nationally, or the operational transparency required to demonstrate compliance with stringent environmental standards laid out under ISO14001 and by the Forestry Stewardship Council.

The NGIS solution

NGIS worked closely with Great Southern to design a new forestry management system (ForMS) that would revolutionise Great Southern's operations. To faciliate the development of ForMS, NGIS recommended the implementation of GeoSamba Universal [GeoSamba (U)].

GeoSamba (U) is an open, service oriented business application, providing Great Southern with a unique geographic perspective to their plantation management activities, streamlined business processes as well as a secure and reliable means of integrating their multiple applications and data sources - creating a single, centralised repository of plantation data.

ForMS has delivered significant commercial benefits

ForMS has revolutionised Great Southern's operations, delivering significant benefits back to the business almost immediately, including:

• A single, centralised system providing the ability to access and update plantation data in real time.
• Improved operational awareness - a single, spatially-enabled view of the business allows plantation managers to accurately track and manage costs and better plan for the future.
• Location transparency - ForMS is accessible from any web-enabled machine with the ultra-thin browser interface guaranteeing performance over the thinnest of bandwidths.
• A 235% productivity gain through the automation of previously laborious, paper-based tasks as well as increased data integrity.
• Auditable work trails and the tools required to easily demonstrate compliance with the FSC's requirements and ISO:14001.
• A scalable system, easily expandable to meet Great Southern's ongoing growth needs.