The Coega Industrial Development Zone is set to become one of the best e-connected manufacturing locations in the world once the zone is fully developed and operational.
"Coega is a `greenfield` development. As such, the Coega Development Corporation (CDC) has a unique opportunity to put together a cutting-edge information and communications technology (ICT) system and infrastructure," says Monde Mawasha, ICT and e-business manager at the CDC.
The information system has to support several strategic goals, says Mawasha.
These include moving towards paperless offices, and providing secure online transactions.
"As the CDC will be linking to government departments such as the South African Police Services (SAPS), South African Revenue Services (SARS) and Customs, in effect, this will be the CDC`s contribution to e-government. Secure Web site transactions play a key role in this regard.
Recently, Comparex took over the re-design of the CDC Web site (www.coega.com), which it also hosts.
"The Web site has to be fully interactive. It has to add value to consultants developing the Zone, provide information to the general public and secure access to organisational data by certified individuals," says Mawasha.
To ensure local content and news articles are updated on a daily basis, the site is fully interactive. This is facilitated by providing a user admin tool and daily replication online between the server in Comparex`s Midrand office and the local intranet, and vice versa.
Future phased developments will see the site become even more complex. One of the features in the pipeline is to make the site e-commerce-enabled.
"We have two environments. One is the office infrastructure that is managed by Comparex Africa and the other is the IDZ ICT systems, which will be implemented over a period of time," says Mawasha.
This will include a network backbone with both wired and wireless integrated systems; ERP or EAI integrated systems; layered applications from data acquisition systems to transactional systems; analytical systems; CRM and business intelligence and an enterprise portal.
The architecture design is expected to be performed by a multi-disciplinary team, which will include business process designers, network specialists, application integration specialists, ERP specialists and IT systems researchers.
Mawasha says "suppliers will be chosen through an open tender process to perform the detailed design of the systems".
The relationship between Comparex Africa and the CDC goes back to 1999, when the former was selected as the ICT service provider for the CDC. This entailed the provision of a Microsoft-based Intel infrastructure for the local offices, but has since grown to include managed services, Web site management and hosting.
The continuing growth of the CDC`s needs have seen Comparex Africa providing research and development support for various requirements - including collaboration and project management tools - and the linking to new labour management systems.
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