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LATEST NEWS
Narada Ellis wins the Darren Golden Award
 Narada Ellis
Narada joined Fenwick Software on a full time basis in December of 2010. Earlier that year, he undertook five months of Industry Based Learning (IBL) through Fenwick’s partnership with Swinburne, and then worked part-time while finishing his BIT degree.
Here is what Narada had to say about his award.
It was a great pleasure to receive the Darren Golden award for the Bachelor of Information Technology (BIT) class of 2010 at Swinburne University of Technology (SUT). To receive validation for my hard work over the three years of my degree feels wonderful.
Studying is a process like any other; it can be improved and refined. I attribute my achievements at university to this realization. I came to this view because I value my time greatly – where a lot of my peers coped with high study loads by increasing their input (i.e., time and energy), I coped with it by developing better methods.
Good approaches emerge naturally when you think like this. To be specific though, some behaviors I find beneficial:
A high level of organization . Unburdening myself from mentally keeping track of dates, to-dos and deliverables makes it far easier to think creatively, and to concentrate on the task at hand. I make judicious use of lists and electronic reminders.
‘Single-tasking’ – the opposite of multitasking. Switching context to another task breaks my flow and the average time I spend on each task rises. I find the quality of output and my attention to detail is better when I give myself uninterrupted time to fully engage in a piece of work. I write down incidental thoughts to deal with at a later time.
Building habits . Habits act like short-circuits through time consuming decision making processes. If a task must be done weekly, is it better to waste time each week wondering when I am going to fit it in, or to ingrain the habit of doing it at a set time?
Writing good notes , organizing them well and revising throughout the semester. This seems like extra work that could be done without, but the time saved not having on revision during the exam period – because I already knew the material well – makes up for the extra time spent maintaining notes.
Sleeping on it . The unconscious can sift information very well. If I go to bed with a problem on my mind, a solution can come quite easy in the morning.
Of course, it is easy to be motivated in a well-designed course. It is commendable that SUT and the faculty have coherently encompassed both business and technical instruction in the BIT, and also provide industry-based learning on top of it all.
The cross-disciplinary nature of the degree reveals the reasons for Fenwick Software’s partnership with SUT. We recognize the value of multi-skilled individuals and know this to be an important aspect of providing good service for our customers.
I would like to thank the Golden family for their continued support of the BIT degree. I would also like to thank the university for a wonderful three years, and I look forward to coming in the future to pursue Honours and beyond.
Posted by Peter Fenwick on 26th May, 2011 | Comments | Permalink
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Fenwick Staff play Royal Tennis
 "Oath of the Tennis Court"
This famous painting by Jaques-Louis David depicts one of the seminal moments of the French Revolution when the delegates of the Third Estate met on the tennis court at Versailles.
On the 8th April, 2011, over 200 years later, Fenwick Software staff and their partners, 30 of us in all, experienced our own liberty, equality and fraternity as we enjoyed an evening of Royal Tennis at the Royal Melbourne Tennis Club in Richmond.
Royal tennis is a mediaeval game, the fore-runner of the modern game of lawn tennis.There is a court in England at Hampton Court Palace which was built for Henry VIII in 1528 and is still in use today. Prior to the French Revolution there were over 300 courts in the world; 250 in Paris alone. Today there are only 45, mainly in UK, France, USA and Australia About 1000 Australians play the game at three clubs – Melbourne, Hobart and Ballarat.
The game is played on an indoor court, similar in width but 40% longer than a lawn tennis court, with four walls, penthouse roofs, galleries, and a tambour which the ball flies off at various angles. Players use wooden asymmetrical racquets and the balls are solid, cloth covered and hand-made. The balls spin viciously, and if you do not observe your opponent’s shot carefully you can easily be three metres away from the ball when trying to hit it.
Club professionals, Paul Tabley and Kate Leeming, showed everyone the rudiments of the game and then supervised a round robin tournament for 16 players. The tournament was hard fought, however those with skills at other ball games - Joao Jesus (squash), David Love (tennis) and Greg Galloway (cricket) had an edge over the others. Ben Beasley exacerbated a sprained ankle and had to withdraw from the final. Brad Foot substituted with alacrity. The final was won by David Love and Suzanne Shaw’s partner David Parker, beating Greg Galloway and Brad Foot 6/5. Paul and Kate then gave a short exhibition match.
The tennis was followed by a barbecue dinner, and then the presentation of the Fenwick Software Real Tennis trophy to the two Daves, and gifts to thank Paul and Kate whose competence and good humour had made the evening such a success.
 Joao Jesus shows the skills of a good squash player Rubina Usman admires Steve Langmaid's return of serve
 Greg Galloway is all concentration, but is bowled around his legs Dave Love serving in the final The Two Dave's in action Winners (The Daves)
with
Runners-up (Greg and Brad)
Posted by Peter Fenwick on 12th April, 2011 | Comments | Permalink
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Winning New Clients
It has been a busy start to the year. We are pleased to welcome six new clients. Express Promotions, Marathon Foods, and CSE-Semaphore have signed up for a Microsoft Dynamics NAV implementation; Burra Foods and Lienert Australia have asked us to take over support of their existing NAV system with a view to making more effective use of it; Bisha Mining has asked us to train staff who are on their way to Eritrea.
Express Promotions
Express Promotions Australia is a well established private printing and distribution business. Its oldest divisions are Mercury promotions which sell branded consumables, including printed wallets, DVDs and enlargement packaging to the photographic industry; and Forms Express – SME which sells cheque and payroll forms to SMEs.
The FE Technologies subsidiary is experiencing significant growth through the introduction of its innovative library solution. Its success is due to its sales process, selling a complete system, and ongoing innovation across cost of manufacture, design and features.
Our initial project is to review the processes of FE Technologies, propose how those processes should work in the future, and implement a fully integrated Microsoft Dynamics NAV solution.
Marathon Foods
Marathon Foods is a privately owned company and the largest manufacturer of spring rolls and dim sims in Australia. They produce mostly frozen product, but also several vacuum sealed lines that are shelf stable. They sell to all the major retailers and buying groups throughout the country.
Marathon has outgrown a legacy accounting system and a very manual inventory management and supply chain management system.
Marathon first started investigating replacing this system with Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Fenwick Software in 2006, but the project did not proceed. Now in 2011, Marathon is ready to resume the project, and will benefit from a vastly improved Dynamics NAV package.
A key requirement of the new system is the ability for the users to easily produce new reports, with both ad-hoc and scheduled delivery. For this, we will use ZAP – a fully integrated BI solution for Dynamics NAV. This will empower users to produce their own reports, and easily respond to the ever changing need of Marathon’s large retail customers and buying groups.
CSE-Semaphore
CSE-Semaphore makes innovative RTU products for automation, asset management and SCADA system applications.
Semaphore is a part of CSE-Global, a leading systems integrator with an international presence spanning the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The group employs over 1,200 people worldwide, with more than 85% representing design, engineering, and project management capabilities and experience. That makes CSE one of the largest independent system providers of its kind.
Semaphore products are designed to monitor and manage the telemetry and control requirements of a broad range of industrial and commercial applications. Their SCADA system products have provided solutions for over 40,000 installations to the most exacting performance and environmental standards. Their global R&D team remains at the forefront of industrial and IP technologies, constantly refining and delivering products to solve the monitoring and control challenges of the future.
Fenwick Software has been commissioned to implement Microsoft Dynamics NAV for their operations in Australia, Belgium and USA.
Burra Foods
Burra Foods is a South Gippsland based dairy business, run by the Crothers family since 1987. In 2009 Burra announced a partnership deal with the Itochu Corporation with a long history in the Dairy industry. Burra Foods specialises in creating bulk products for manufacturers with special requirements both in Australia and overseas.
Burra Foods have been using Dynamics NAV since July 2007. However, there is a growing sense in the organization that the processes within the system are too cumbersome and they do not support the organization in making fast and effective decisions due to manual reporting outside the system. In addition, Burra Foods team members didn’t get adequate support from their previous NAV partner.
The Chief Financial Officer of Burra Foods, Clive Baldwin, recently contacted Fenwick Software to take over the support of Dynamics NAV. Our initial review revealed many weaknesses including manual adjustments, cumbersome processes, lack of training and less than optimal use of the software.
We have now been commissioned to re-implement the system and to upgrade it to the latest version.
Lienert Australia
Lienert Australia is a family owned Australian company established in 1970 specialising in the manufacture and supply of stock feed premixes and supplements, feed ingredients and nutritional advice to the Australian Livestock Industry.
Their head office is based in Roseworthy in South Australia with a small finance team based temporarily in Gawler. They have two manufacturing sites, based in Roseworthy, South Australia and Forbes, New South Wales and warehouse and distribution offices in Bendigo, Victoria and Charlton, Queensland. There is a mobile/travelling sales team of approximately 15 and a sales representative is also based in the Philippines.
Microsoft Dynamics NAV has been in use since April 2008 to manage Lienert’s finance, inventory, sales, purchasing, and manufacturing processes. In 2008 Lienert acquired Provimi Australia and the business doubled in size. Provimi were also users of NAV and a project was undertaken to merge the 2 companies into a single database with 1 company and all systems based in SA. This project went live in November 2009.
Fenwick Software has significant Manufacturing experience from its work for clients such as Autofab, MFB Products, Edlyn Foods, Ward McKenzie, and Mars Birdcare. Lienert Australia appointed Fenwick Software in March 2011 to provide support services to achieve its objective of making better use of the NAV system and specifically the Manufacturing module.
Bisha Mining
Bisha Mining is an Eritrean company formed for the development and operation of the Bisha Mine in western Eritrea. It is owned by Nevsun Resources Ltd. (60%) and the Eritrean National Mining Corporation (ENAMCO) (40%).
The Bisha Project is a fully financed and permitted high-grade gold, copper and zinc deposit with production having commenced in February 2011. The Bisha Project has received continuous support from the Eritrean government, who granted the Company's mining license in January 2008. The project is positioned to become the first modern day mine in this NE African country, with production projected to return payable metals of:
1.14 Million Oz GOLD | 11.9 Million Oz SILVER | 821 Million Lb COPPER | 1,373 Million Lb ZINC
The Bisha Mine will be a low-cost gold producer for the first two years and a low-cost, high-grade copper and zinc producer for the remaining 13 year mine life. Further resource potential exists at depth and from nearby discoveries within the Company's licensed areas.
David Finch, formerly CFO for Autofab, is now responsible for getting Microsoft Dynamics NAV implemented in Eritrea. He has commissioned Fenwick Software to provide basic training for his staff.
Posted by Peter Fenwick on 29th March, 2011 | Comments | Permalink
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