Software maker gets grant of $400,000

By RICHARD PAMATATAU


Wellington software maker Superstructure has been granted $400,000 in taxpayer funding to bolster development of its intelligence and investigation software, which includes translation into languages for the Asian market.

Technology New Zealand has awarded the money as part of its Technology for Business Growth project, which invested $26.2 million in the past financial year. Twenty of the projects received funding of more than $400,000.

Superstructure managing director Lindsay Gault said the grant money would be used for projects which incorporated new Asian language capability, text analysis and functions that allowed for better sharing of information between agencies around the world.

Superstructure has deals for its Aviation Safety Software with Sky Service in Canada, the Airways Corporation in Oman, Air Tahiti, Britain's MK Airlines and Christchurch International Airport.

Aviation Quality Database (AQD) software looks at the root causes of quality and safety deficiencies in the airline industry and identifies appropriate corrective actions.

Air NZ's manager of airline quality assurance, Errol Burtenshaw, said the airline used AQD to gather information across its operations on everything from bird strikes to maintenance.

AQD replaced a complex paper system in 1997, he said, and was used to fulfil all reporting requirements of the Civil Aviation Authority.

"It is very robust and allows us to look at operations and establish trends from events." For example, if bird strike was a particular problem the airline could look at the take-off route and chart the climb from take-off differently, said Burtenshaw.

Cathay Pacific's manager of operations standards and quality flight operations, Graham Marsh, said the software sat across a number of its audit and engineering management processes.

It was behind-the-scenes software that was part of the checks and balances needed to keep aircraft safely in the air, he said.

"It is the best tool to manage the huge amounts of information being considered."

Superstructure's other product is the Secure Intelligence Database (SID). It is used by the NZ Police and offers a central repository for intelligence analysis.

It has a database that provides comprehensive document registry and classification with full text-searching capability and profiles of any type and content can be held and examined.

Gault said relationships and links between entities were recorded by the system and information contained in SID was integrated to its visual analysis tool (i2 Analyst Notebooks).

He said the key to SID was the flexibility to handle intelligence from diverse fields such as taxation fraud, money laundering, military intelligence, illegal drug supply, wildlife poaching, anti-terrorist intelligence, homicide or fisheries fraud. SID could also be used for marketing intelligence, though it was not sold that way yet.

The company's revenue was not revealed. It employs 20 staff.