Walstan ERP system big hit across the Tasman

By Adam Gifford

A New Zealand-made enterprise resource planning (ERP) system aimed at make-to-order manufacturers is a hit across the Tasman.

Walstan Systems' Beacon for Business was launched in February and is already in 17 Australian sites. It does not yet have a New Zealand distributor.

"It's easier to sell into Australia from here than sell locally. New Zealand businesses don't want to buy things made here," said Walstan managing director Kim Walker.

The average sale had been a 15-to-20-user system costing about $70,000. The largest site so far had 60 users.

Walstan, a three-person operation, has developed other manufacturing systems, including the Picman materials requirements planning system.

Mr Walker said that with Beacon, chief developer Kate Stanton aimed to achieve a complete shrink-wrapped ERP solution on a single CD.

Sold through resellers specialising in manufacturing applications, Beacon came with education programmes and an implementation plan written in Microsoft Project, which allowed the resellers to get the system running quickly.

Mr Walker said implementation time, price and the latest Web-enabling technologies gave an advantage over competitors such as MFG Pro and Prometheus Pronto.

"It's taking about three months from purchase to go live."

While Beacon could run on Unix operating systems, most sites ran it on Windows NT servers.

"It's different to mainstream ERP systems in that it's ready to plug in. We have taken advantage of Microsoft's COM architecture to do object-oriented software."

Object orientation meant software routines could be reused, and changes could be made to one part of the program without the rest of the code having to be rewritten.

Mr Walker said that with NT systems, Walstan could support the sites from New Zealand through dial-in access.

"If there's a problem, typically we can fix it overnight."

Beacon runs on the SQL-compliant UniVerse database from Ardent Software, the second-largest open database vendor in the Asia-Pacific region.

Mr Walker said Beacon needed a database that could cope with the complex queries involved in made-to-order manufacturing.

A call-centre operator or customer using a web site could specify the configuration wanted, and the software would look at parts inventories, manufacturing and delivery schedules to immediately give a price and delivery date, as well as generate the materials requests and other information needed to start manufacturing.

A model configurator allowed the buyer to see pictures of what they ordered on the screen, however complex the customisation.

Mr Walker said clients included furniture-makers, a steel products company and two Holden divisions, Holden Special Vehicles (HSV) and Holden By Design (HBD).

HSV produced about 3500 customised Holden Commodores and Statesman cars a year, while HBD was responsible for niche manufacturing of taxis, police cars and LPG fitments.

"Our belief is make-to-order is how more manufacturers will want to go," Mr Walker said. "Instead of marketing through wholesalers, they will sell direct to customers on the web.

"Our software is all internet-ready. Some customers have already put entry screens and queries on to browser pages, using Visual Basic script."