FishServe chooses Simpl to help rebuild quota registry

By ADAM GIFFORD



Less than three years after switching on its $14 million fisheries quota management registry, Seafood Industry Council subsidiary FishServe is rebuilding the system.

It has picked Simpl to transfer the core applications from the older Microsoft COM environment to .Net.

FishServe IT manager David Wasley said the 18-month project would cost "in the low millions", far less than system developer Deloitte Consulting cost first time round.

"It will cost nowhere near the last one. We would never get away with that," he said.

"The first system involved a lot of upfront design and business process development."

Apart from upgrading to the latest version of Microsoft SQL Server, the database structure will be left mainly intact.

Wasley said the main changes would be to the web interfaces, which were a second thought in the 2001 system.

"We want to have closer integration so we can get more services out quicker, such as vessel registration, online submission of data and transfer of catch entitlements," he said.

"A lot of stuff we want to do will have to be cleared by the Ministry of Fisheries first."

FishServe maintains the registry, which is the hub of a $1 billion industry, as part of a devolution process kicked off by the Fisheries Act 1996.

It took on many former ministry staff to handle administration and manual processing, and has tried to automate as much as possible.

Wasley said that although most users accessed the system from their company offices rather than at sea, part of the redesign would involve making it accessible on a range of smart devices.

Five FishServe developers will work alongside Simpl's 10-strong team using a business-driven extreme programming methodology.

In the tender, FishServe said it preferred a New Zealand supplier.

"Part of the process is skills transfer, which is part of the reason it is taking longer than it may need to.

"We want to make sure that at the end of the project we can maintain and enhance the program in-house," Wasley said.

The present system worked well, he said, but FishServe did not want to fall behind on technology and get caught with another large development bill.