Natal Portland Cement (NPC), KwaZulu-Natal`s sole cement manufacturer, has gone live with a voice-over-IP (VOIP) system that connects three regional sites.
The system, which was designed and deployed by systems integrator Intrinsic Technology, replaces the existing decentralised infrastructure with a single Diginet line-based voice and data communications network.
The VOIP installation connects the company`s Durban head office with factories and satellite operations in Newcastle and Simuma near Port Shepstone. This streamlines the process of internal communication between these three operations.
The project is one of the last stages of an R18 million IT infrastructure upgrade that has been in progress for over three years. It was originally initiated to take advantage of newer enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management systems - NPC had been running a mainframe-type environment with proprietary applications.
"We deployed HP Unix servers as a foundation. These were installed and clustered for data protection and high availability by Intrinsic," says Rob Storrar, the financial executive-turned-IT project manager at NPC.
"We then implemented an Oracle database that served business data into the JD Edwards OneWorld ERP system. Windows NT servers with communication software and the Microsoft Office suite were also rolled out.
"Today, after investing close on R18 million, we`re finding that the new systems manage practically all our business and communication processes, and VOIP has the potential to greatly reduce internal communication costs."
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