JIC Mining Services, an outsourcing company specialising in the gold and platinum mining industries, has bought two Promaster servers from Computer Configurations to house its new financial software and to drive the automation of its Pretoria, Klerksdorp and Springs offices.
JIC, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Molope Group, employs 12 000 people in such services as sweeping, reclamation, stoping, development and pillar mining.
"Mining companies use us because outsourcing is cost-effective," says FD Martin Schermers.
In order to support the company infrastructure, JIC identified the need to:
Ensure Year 2000 software compliance;
Install software that will support multi-company functionality; and
Provide comprehensive management reporting.
JIC`s previous accounts system, Merlin, was developed over 10 years and the estimate for Year 2000 remediation was excessive. It also did not offer the level of management reporting and multiple user access that the company`s growth dictated. An office automation project was identified as necessary for efficient administrative and wage business processes among the three offices.
Computer Configurations is one of the most experienced Tetra business partners in South Africa, having worked with the software for more than a decade.
A Promaster 605T running on SCO Unix drives Tetra on Informix, while a Windows NT-based Promaster 80 runs office automation. A WAN is being introduced to link the Pretoria, Klerksdorp and Springs offices and Microsoft Office is the enabling desktop software.
Project manager John Allan, MD of Tetra specialist The Edge, says: "Our working relationship with Computer Configurations has been based on their considerable Tetra experience, hardware and networking support. These are critical to the success of our joint projects."
Schermers sees this as the foundation of a larger project that will provide infrastructure for the Molope Group as a whole.
"Our success depends on our ability to maintain efficient service levels for our customers. We have a very large workforce spread over a wide area. The development of our office and systems infrastructure underpins the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of JIC`s administrative and financial services," says Schermers.
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