Fonterra aims to e-monitor milk supply

By RICHARD WOOD

Fonterra expects to complete a switch to Aspire, a new milk management and shareholder services system, by September.

The project was planned 18 months ago for Kiwi Dairies before the Fonterra merger, but was frozen over summer while a decision was made on its future.

The result was a doubling of the budget on Aspire to about $3 million and the decision to expand it to reach all Fonterra's 14,000 shareholder farmers.

The key part of the system is the supplier payment module, which will be the last to go live.

Aspire is built with Jade Software's development tools and both internal and Jade staff in Christchurch are working on it.

New Zealand Milk Products CIO Marcel Van den Assum said the system would replace the internally developed TAS system that was used within NZ Dairy Group.

The system manages milk supply, including dealing with the sourcing of the milk and the scheduling of trucking, and also provides information to shareholders, including what has been loaded and the quality of the milk.

One additional subproject has been a voting system for the shareholders to vote for the board.

Van den Assum said Aspire enabled Fonterra to provide any services to its shareholder farmers.

"You do need to have that sort of development environment to be able to make changes quickly and incorporate them in your solution."

Shareholder services can be delivered through Fonterra's Fencepost website. Van den Assum said more than 70 per cent of its farmers had internet access.

While Aspire operates at the supplier end of the business, Fonterra has numerous other systems, including Oracle manufacturing applications and an SAP system for supply chain planning.

nzherald.co.nz/dairy

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