System to help polytech grow

By ADAM GIFFORD

Universal College of Learning has bought a OneWorld Xe financial and procurement system from JD Edwards to handle its growth.

Financial controller Darryl Purdy said the Palmerston North-based polytechnic's eight-year-old system, a locally built product called Real Time, was not coping.

"We had a number of systems we had to build outside it, like purchase ordering and gross margin analysis. We want to bring all that into the financial management system," Purdy said.

He said OneWorld Xe could be more closely integrated with Ucol's Progress-based student management system, Promis, allowing fee data, receipts and programme details to move across both systems.

As well as its main Palmerston North base, UCOL has campuses in Levin, Wairarapa and Whanganui Polytechnic. It has about 13,000 enrolled students and 650 staff.

It has grown 12 per cent annually for the past five years, and Purdy said its system needed to cope with policy changes.