Unitrans Freight, a division of JSE-listed transport, distribution and logistics company Unitrans, has completed a six-week Oracle migration project, part of a larger system migration project designed to improve data access across Unitrans Freight`s four operational divisions.
The project included a full migration of Unitrans Freight`s Sage CS/3 financial system to the new platform and was outsourced to CS/3 supplier PQ Tetra, a division of PQ Africa Professional Services.
Unitrans Freight`s four divisions, which operate around products on a national basis, provide freight logistics services to customers in commercial, fuel and chemical, mining and forest products, and sugar industries. It remains the largest contributor to the Unitrans group`s annual turnover, with an ongoing focus on IT development that supports the company`s objective to be rated as its clients` transport and logistics service provider of choice.
Unitrans Freight IT manager Victor Moore says the transition from traditional freight services to freight logistics began four years ago, with the recognition that customers were increasingly looking for value-add solutions to goods transport.
"The proliferation of smaller operators in the freight market encouraged larger operators such as ourselves to steer away from price-based competition and find other ways of meeting our clients` diverse transport requirements, especially in the movement of specialised cargo," says Moore.
"Internally the shift meant a closer inspection of the information systems we used to drive our freight services, making sure they were capable of keeping up with the increasing efficiencies we were looking for."
The decision was taken to migrate from the company`s older (and by then redundant) C-ISAM platform to Oracle, and port the core financial system, Sage`s CS/3, to the new platform.
"Moving to Oracle gave us a more flexible data platform on which to run our CS/3 operation data store," says Moore. "We`ve come a long way since first using CS/3 (in its previous incarnations Chameleon and then Tetra) - initially on a 386 server with eight users, to two dual-processor 600MHz Pentium boxes with 72 concurrent users - so the demands on the system have escalated.
"More importantly, the Oracle migration allows our users to extract CS/3 data seamlessly from our Microsoft SQL Server data warehouse and analyse it with Cognos`s PowerPlay. Our problem has never been collecting data, but rather doing something with it, and now we have the tools we need to support our service growth objectives."
Looking ahead, Moore is looking to pilot Sage`s CS/3 Web client for direct data communications with remote depots in sub-Saharan Africa. The initial project will be run from the Swaziland depot, with 16 Web client users, then rolled out to depots in Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and lower-transaction volume depots in SA.
"CS/3 Web client gives us a cost-effective way of linking our remote and lower transaction volume depots to the central data store and gives us full control of the distribution network in real-time over the Web," Moore concludes.
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Based in Cape Town with offices throughout SA, PQ Africa`s PQ Tetra division forms part of the PQ Africa Professional Services group in the Western Cape. It is the largest certified Sage Enterprise Solutions implementation partner in Africa, with the only Sage-certified support centre for Sage resellers and clients in Africa.
It also hosts the only
Sage-accredited professional training centre outside the UK. PQ Tetra`s service portfolio extends to Crystal Decisions` (previously Seagate Software) business intelligence tools, Preactor`s advanced planning system software and DPS International`s routing and planning tools.
PQ Tetra services vertical markets in the electronics, telecommunications, agriculture, packaging, printing and leisure industries, among others. Its client portfolio includes some of SA`s leading corporates, including Vodacom SP, Capespan, Independent Newspapers, Bowler Metcalf, Tellumat and BP South Africa.
PQ Africa
PQ Africa was formed as a result of the merger of Persetel Holdings and Q Data. Comparex Holdings Limited has a 50% minus one share interest in PQ Africa. The black empowerment group NITAC (the National IT Acquisition Consortium), led by Real Africa Holdings Limited, holds a controlling interest of 50% plus one share in PQ Africa.
PQ Africa is SA`s leading provider of competitive, innovative and flexible business solutions based on information and communications technology. These comprehensive business solutions include systems integration, consulting, package implementation, software development, outsourcing, hardware, software, peripherals, voice, video and data communication systems, customer relationship management solutions and networking equipment and services. Internet solutions include the development and deployment of electronic commerce and electronic data interchange-based solutions and digital authentication.
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