Brisbane City Council
Brisbane Works Weighbridge Management
Queensland-based Brisbane City Council operates several stone quarries and asphalt plants, in order to supply its own Works department, as well as for commercial sales. Whilst the current terminal-based system had worked for many years, its short-comings were not to be carried forward into the revised accounting and management practices currently being implemented. The BCC chose VRT to redevelop in Oracle a weighing information system previously developed by VRT's partner, weighing specialists, WeighMaster. The new WeighMaster/Oracle system incorporates truck weighing and issuing of freight dockets, as well as the transfer of the information between weighbridge sites, the corporate billing systems, and other business modules installed as part of Mincom's MIMS system.
Why WeighMaster/Oracle?
"Why would anyone want to change a system that had been working satisfactorily for over 15 years?"
That is the question that faced both the management and operational staff. However, when shown the benefits of having a well-established weighing system which could, most importantly, integrate with their other systems because it ran on the same type of database, the question quickly changed to:
"Why would anyone not want to have their weighing system run on the same industry-standard base as the rest of their operations?"
The system consists of the following:
- Windows PCs running WeighMaster software, layered over Oracle on a Windows NT base (central server) or Win'95 (at 4 weighbridge sites).
- Data transfers to and from MIMS accounting and Works management.
- Choice of either automatically using stored truck tare weights or re-weighing on every or any load.
- Selection of weighbridge scales and indicators that will link into the system.
- Centrally-stored data for security, but with the added benefit of being able to issue weighbridge tickets even when the link from the site is down.
Brisbane City Council's investment in the future of its weighing operations has culminated in many expected features and benefits.
Benefits
The large number of pricing options featured result in WeighMaster having greater flexibility in billing, with that being available at the point-of-issue, rather than only as journal entries in the accounting system after the fact, thus lessening the load on the accounting department resources.
This means, of course, that the Council can base their prices on what the market wants, rather than what the old system was capable of delivering, and, thereby, gain greater market-share.
Because the WeighMaster system is based on Oracle, the benefits include:
- Ease of integration into the Council's other data systems, meaning less risk of human error in the current data transfer from one to the other, and the re-work and cost associated with that.
- Vast choice of reports possible, via industry-standard Oracle Reports. This is an aid to management decision making.
- Ease of back-up, restore, and database administration, because the DBA does not have to learn a new database in order to support the WeighMaster system, meaning a reduction in both maintenance and training costs.
