Morton Blacketer has helped many clients to achieve IT goals. We have worked across industries, locally and internationally, to provide the best IT solution.

Austereo
Bell's Line
Business & Financial Strategy Pty Ltd
Courts Administration Authority (SA)

Austereo Pty Ltd

Company background

Austereo is a national radio network, owning both the MMM and Today FM networks. In total, they have 12 radio stations, some streaming media web stations, and interests in radio stations in Malaysia, Greece and the UK.

Business situation

With a national radio network, coordinating the purchasing of radio advertising is a complex process. It encompasses selecting particular classes of advertising, over periods of time on different stations and with different timings from a large number of buyers. Austereo wanted to reduce their administration and support costs, as well as make buying and planning of radio advertising easier for clients.

Solution

Morton Blacketer addressed Austereo's business problem by delivering a back-end integrated, web solution. Using state of the art client server and web based technologies, Austereo now provides an interactive website for buyers to select and purchase advertising space.

With secure access, the site is available to registered advertising agencies and media buyers, who are able to plan campaigns up to 52 weeks in advance. The site uses existing back end applications to gain access to the price and availability of radio spots and automatically updates the radio station's traffic management systems with each completed contract. It also interacts with an AC Neilson Database for reach and frequency analysis.

Austereo can now offer clients a better way to do business, leading the way in the media industry.

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Bell's Line Pty Ltd

Company background

Peter Vandeleur, Managing Director, founded Bell's Line in 1996 on the premise that wool marketing could be improved by the proper development of electronic systems. Through developing a sophisticated, on-line marketing system (e-wool), Bell's Line has revolutionised the way Australian wool is traded. It now provides data intermediary, or deal making, services between growers, buyers and brokers of wool via the internet.

Business situation

The wool industry market place consisted of an inefficient, time consuming, auction system that had not changed for almost 100 years. Bell's Line had identified a better way for the industry to do business using the internet, but needed a strong development partner to help them realise their vision.

Solution

Morton Blacketer undertook a process of business analysis and system specification to establish the computer system requirements for Bell's Line. A staged development was required to keep within budget, but with the flexibility to upgrade capabilities as resources permitted.

Since 1996, Bell's Line and Morton Blacketer have worked together to develop a Wool Marketing System, that stores information about wool lines, a Production Planning System, that forecasts wool production and allows growers to sell on the forward market, and now an interactive website to provide daily valuations and facilitate trade.

The back-end support and front-end transaction applications work as one integrated system to enable players within the industry to control their own data and interact with the process in a more user friendly way. e-wool has proven to be a reliable, e-commerce, marketing tool that is of major advantage to the wool industry, as well as delivering targeted business outcomes for Bell's Line.

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Company background

Business & Financial Strategy (BFS) Pty Ltd is an Adelaide based financial services and tax planning organisation, providing expertise to accounting firms across Australia.

BFS provide tools to empower accountants in the areas of financial planning, tax planning and debt reduction strategies. These tools enable accountants to provide value added benefits to clients, improving client assessment and advice.

Business situation

BFS provided services through a sophisticated system of Excel spreadsheets. Although this system was adequate, with growing customer demand, it was not suitable for high volume work. In order to scale up their business, they needed to convert the spreadsheets into distributed applications, as well as improving access to services.

Solution

Morton Blacketer's solution included a website and suite of programs, using both two and three tier client server technology, distributed transaction processing, web technology and 128 bit encryption (for secure data transmission). There are a number of modules, which include The Client Qualifier, Administrative Tools to control access of various accounting firms, a SWOT Analysis Tool, a Financial Diagnosis Tool, Personal Cash Flow Management and Planning, and Business Cash Flow Management and Planning. The system is designed to enable accountants can use modules offline and then connect over the internet to update their details on the BFS database.

Each module has been implemented, one by one, to approximately 500 accountants across Australia and is used by many thousands of clients dialling into the system. When complete, the system will allow for approximately 6000 concurrent users.
As well as increasing capacity, Morton Blacketer's solution has enabled BFS to provide their services both more efficiently and effectively to clients at remote locations.

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Company background

The Courts Administration Authority is independent of Government, constituted by the Courts Administration Act 1993. It controls the provision of the administrative facilities and services required by State courts to carry out their judicial functions.
Participating courts of the Authority are the Supreme Court, District Court, Magistrates Court, Youth Court, Environment, Resources and Development Court, Coroner's Court and Industrial Relations Court.

Business situation

The Courts Administration Authority wanted to reduce paper based legal services and administration time involved in processing civil claims for the state's courts. They also wanted to streamline the billing process and needed a reliable technology partner to help develop the appropriate system.

Solution

Firstly, Morton Blacketer worked with the Courts Administration Authority to produce an Information Gathering Report. This involved interviewing end users to develop a wish list of how best to solve their problems. From here, a Project Definition Report and Functional Specification were developed to outline the appropriate solution.

Legal practitioners can now log on to the Internet which enables single and bulk lodgement of civil claims with the Magistrates Court. The site is user name and password protected, and provides validation before processing payments via direct debit or credit card via the South Australian Government's BIZGATE payment gateway. Upon successful payment, a receipt is auto generated and emailed to the legal practitioner.

Claims then pass to the Courts Administration Authority's Courts Case Management System for processing, generating a lodgement number, which is passed back to the legal practitioner, containing a claim number and the claim documents as a pdf file.

The Courts Administration Authority expects a substantial return on investment in the project within three years, complemented by service improvements, reducing processing time from one to three weeks to just two days.

The electronic lodgement website is also hosted by Morton Blacketer.

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Company background

The Department for Environment and Heritage provides services to manage the protection, conservation, enhancement and utilisation of South Australia’s natural resources within a framework of ecologically sustainable development. A range of information tools are developed and provided to support decision-making and provide information to stakeholders, customers and the community.

Business situation

The Murray-Darling Basin Commission, in collaboration with water management organisations and government agencies in SA, Victoria and NSW, are working together to improve water use efficiency across the Murray-Darling Basin. 

The alliance aims to develop user-friendly, effective and affordable tools which will help regional water managers and irrigators improve water management, crop production and profitability and reduce environmental degradation in the horticulture sector.  The tools will enable water use efficiency reporting at the on-farm, property, district and regional levels.

Solution

In partnership with ESRI (Australia), Morton Blacketer was selected to work with the Department for Environment and Heritage in South Australia to develop an Irrigation Inventory Tool. 

The project takes a strategic view of systems design, with a long-term objective broken down into a staged development.

Stage one, the Irrigation Inventory Tool, captures information at the property level.  This includes property, irrigation, water and survey data that can be entered via laptops in the field, with entry and management also possible in an office environment. 

Using Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Visual Basic and ESRI ArcGIS, a flexible platform was developed to enable integration with existing legacy information systems, a user-friendly interface, and enhancements in future stages.  The solution provides both tabular and spatial data about the property, irrigation system and crop patch.  This includes crop type, variety and rootstock, as well as water information, such as irrigation outlets, drainage systems and valve units.

The new Irrigation Inventory Tool provides systematic and consistent capture of crop and irrigation information using ortho photographs as the base.  The spatial component provides the ability to view, print and export property plans.

In Stage Two, this information will be combined with data related to other factors, such as climate and crop water requirements, to calculate water use efficiency.  The aim is to assist natural resource management by calculating how much of the applied water moves through the root zone of the crop and drains into the water table.

A user manual and online help files were created to assist with training and implementation.

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Elec-Air Pty Ltd

Company background

Elec-Air was established in 1983 to provide electrical, refrigeration and air conditioning sales and service to commercial and industrial markets. They are experienced troubleshooters, improving efficiencies with existing systems, as well as installing new ones.

Elec-Air are also distributors of Rockwell Software and Allen Bradley process control and automation equipment.

Business situation

Elec-Air operated a manual order system to process client purchase orders for Rockwell Software systems. Each item of software purchased included a support contract. This needed to be resold on the anniversary of the original sale.
As business grew, keeping track of resulting site agreements, service contracts, renewals and maintenance became more and more complex, with excess administration.

Solution

Morton Blacketer developed a software application to automate the Rockwell Software sales and maintenance process. Multiple product orders can now be made from the one entry screen form. Once the client receives the Rockwell Software, a service contract is initialised. The system automatically ensures that Elec-Air follows up all support contract sales.
The Rockwell Software librarian system has ensured on time servicing and renewal, improved planning, cash flow and customer service.

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Company background

Gramp Skin Pathology is a specialist, private laboratory that offers a high quality, diagnostic service. The laboratory specialises in dermatopathology, analysing skin samples provided by plastic surgeons, dermatologists and general practitioners, within the Adelaide metropolitan, and South Australian and Victorian regional areas.

Business situation

Client expectations of electronic delivery of pathology reports began in 1997. At this time, only a few clients requested this facility. Gramp Skin Pathology found a communications package that would allow clients to make a serial connection via modem to a Gramp Skin Pathology computer to retrieve their reports. Clients provided their own computer infrastructure.
The serial connection system required significant resources to manage and maintain. It also required sophisticated computer skills both at Gramp Skin Pathology and the client site. It was time consuming and required maintenance, creating issues with support staffing.

Gramps wanted to reduce the turnaround time, complexity and costs involved with this method of delivering medical reports.

Solution

Gramp Skin Pathology wanted to simplify the process and provide ownership of the facility to the client. Morton Blacketer developed a solution, which enables the electronic delivery of pathology results over the internet, to meet both of these objectives.
The system works by having a central web site that Gramp Skin Pathology can upload their results to. Doctors and hospitals can log onto the web site and collect their pathology results, which are downloaded into their medical practice management system. The site is user name and password protected.

There are also reporting tools available to enable Gramp Skin Pathology to monitor results collection.

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Mt Barker District Council

Company background

Mt Barker District Council provides a variety of local government services and facilities to their 23,000 residents and ratepayers.

Business situation

Information technology expenditure accounted for a significant proportion of Mt Barker District Council's annual budget. To ensure maximum effectiveness, the Council required a review of their current human, software and hardware technology assets.
Solution

Morton Blacketer conducted a full, information technology audit. The audit encompassed a review of Mt Barker District Council's systems, hardware, software, processes, operational procedures and documentation. Staff were interviewed, to gauge their thoughts on the effectiveness of current systems, and underwent an experience and capabilities audit, which included succession planning.

A risk management audit, with a review of disaster recovery procedures, was also conducted.

The final report presented an audit and analysis of the Council's present position, with recommendations of how to ensure maximum value from IT expenditure.

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University of Papua New Guinea

Company background

The University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) is an educational and research institution servicing Papua New Guinea and the Pacific.  Established in 1965, the University educates over 15,000 students each year in the Schools of Business, Medicine, Law, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Natural and Physical Sciences.  Within the latter school is the university’s Remote Sensing Centre, established in 2003 through collaboration between UPNG, the National Department of Planning and Monitoring (NDPM) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).  The European Union, German Development Service and Conservation International also support the Remote Sensing Centre.

Business situation

The Remote Sensing Centre provides a variety of geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing courses to students and supports the integration of these technologies throughout the commercial sector and broader community.  One way in which the Centre wanted to achieve this was by providing a natural resource management tool that would enable users to utilise a broad array of cadastral and natural resource data within an online, GIS framework. 

Solution

Morton Blacketer worked with the Remote Sensing Centre to add interactive mapping pages to their website.  These pages enable users to query a massive number of national datasets such as census information, cadastral boundaries, mining and forestry leases and natural resource information. 

A large screen size has been set to improve usability and visual appeal.  It also provides room for an inset map to show the user which section, of the whole country, they are viewing. 

When the Remote Sensing Centre updates data sets, ‘layer control’ enables users to update their maps or import the information as new map layers.  By clicking on a point or region, a summary statistics window appears to include information such as population, males/females, district etc.  Users can also design custom queries to resource the information that they need.  This may include, for example, selected road length, combined population of two or more regions, mining lease information etc.  The information is presented as both data and in map format, which can then be printed. 

Other pages added to the site include information about the School, their ongoing projects, and products and downloads available.

Stage 1 focused on developing the website functionality.  Stage 2 introduced controls to improve the speed and efficiency of mapping retrieval and performance over dial up connections.  It also upgraded the user interface, changing colours, menu format, and map labelling and layering features.  The user no longer needs to search through the map to find appropriate layers, but can always see all layers available.  A map link help facility was included to explain the available data and how to use the mapping functions.  Finally, a counter was added to the site to enable the Remote Sensing Centre to monitor user rates.

Information technology tools

ArcIMS, Windows Server 2003, Java Script, IIS, Visual Studio 2003, DHTML, Jakarta, Image Web Server

Implementation date

September 2004

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Company background

The University of South Australia is the state's largest university, with over 25,000 students, 2,000 staff and six campuses. It is recognised, nationally, as a leader in collaborative industry research, and for quality of teaching and community service.

The University is a Foundation member of the Australian Technology Network (ATN) and the Global University Alliance (GUA).

Business situation

With staff and students located across six campuses, the collection, collation and distribution of financial information was cumbersome. Reports were printed for 3,000 cost centres and distributed via the internal mail system. The system proved costly, in terms of both administration and time.

Solution

Morton Blacketer analysed the current system and created an application that fully automated cost centre financial reporting.
The University of South Australia now has a system that allows staff to produce and distribute their own cost centre financial reports via electronic mail. Once each cost centre has updated their information, the system automatically produces one report per person (including all of their cost centres) and emails it to them. The new application eliminates administrative frustration, making financial reporting more timely and cost effective.