Carter Holt Harvey sets up software business

6.00pm - by Richard Wood

Carter Holt Harvey has set up a software business to sell a 3D modeling, costing and manufacturing system for the joinery and building industry.

The first software product, Cubit Cabinet, is for the design and making of kitchens and will sell for $13,900 including training.

It will be followed by a system for residential housing.CHH is already involved in a kitchen design presentation system called Virtual World which it distributes internationally to retail hardware stores through its Straightedge business unit.The new Cubit software has came out of its Ecopine division and is targeted directly at joineries.

Cubit has been developed at a cost of $2 million over two years by a team of 20 and a patent is being sought for aspects of the costing engine.CHH project manager Nick Clements said the system is unique in the way its costing engine works.

Cubit can adjust costs and materials on the fly as the 3D design is changed and can operate in a multiuser mode.MasterCraft Kitchens has piloted the drawing component of the product in Hamilton for the past six months and is awaiting implementation of the other components.

National franchise manager Kevin Belz said while it is difficult to calculate the return on investment of the system he thought it will pay for itself in a year ``no problem''.``It will mean we can draw on it, price and quote from it, send it through to our factory machinery and send the data to our accounting system to invoice.

It's an A-Z of cabinet manufacturing.''Clements said the aim will be to sell the product first in New Zealand to a market of 2500 joiners, then into Australia where there are 12500, and ultimately internationally.Local software developer CAD Image Solutions have been involved in the computer aided design side while another local firm Computerised Alternatives has worked on the database and optimisation.The joinery product database of CHH's Carters business will be included as standard and updateable online.

But Clements said the open nature of Cubit allows other supplier's costing data to be loaded because it doesn't want customers to feel locked in.CHH has used the 3D graphic engine of Hungarian Computer Aided Design vendor Graphicsoft ArchiCAD and is seeking to tap into ArchiCAD's international distribution network.Clements said ArchiCAD has 30 percent of the New Zealand market and its products are used around the world.

Graphicsoft has 45 ArchiCAD distributors in the United States.