Press Release -11 January 2008

In 2002, as part of the Department of Sustainability and Environment's (DSE) "Forests Our Future" policy statement, the Victorian Government announced the intention to establish Vic Forests as a commercial forest service entity. This was done so that commercial objectives could be openly separated from the regulatory functions of Government in relation to timber harvesting in State forest in Victoria.

VicForests commenced operations on 1 August 2004 and currently both Vic Forests and the DSE are using a system called "LogSales/PRISM" for management processes surrounding sales of forest produce. This system no longer meets the needs of either Vic Forests or DSE.

In June 2007, the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) awarded Spatial Vision the contract to develop a new licensing and invoicing system to manage the processes surrounding the sale of sawlogs, firewood and other forest produce from Victorian State forests. The Forest Produce Sales System (FPSS) is intended to replace and extend existing systems which no longer meet the needs of the department. The contact is broken into two distinct phases.

The first phase of the contract was to develop a detailed functional requirements specification and technical design for FPSS. The second phase is to develop and deliver the FPSS application.

The first stage saw the existing high level business requirements and key expectations expanded to formulate a clear understanding of what the FPSS will deliver to its users. The document was supported by a non functional screen prototype that introduced the users to a web based interface, a significant change from the existing text based interface.

The second phase has now commenced. The FPSS will incorporate the commercial product licencing and invoicing found in the existing systems but will also be expanded to include domestic sales capabilities and the management of Agent based domestic firewood sales.

The development of FPSS will also be used as an opportunity to provide a uniform approach to sales administration and provide statewide reporting capabilities for management.

FPSS will be delivered as a modern, web based application that will consolidate all forest produce data into a single statewide database providing a level of flexibility and information access that is not currently available.For further information, please contact:

Graeme Martin
Ph: (03) 9691 3000
email info@spatialvision.com.au

Copyright © Spatial Vision, Friday, 11-January-2008