New Zealand Steel(MIS100 2011)

Reports to: Vice president finance
Size of IS shop: 47

PCs:1050
Mobile PCs: 2250
Terminals: 60
Hand-held devices: NA
Total screens: 3360

Industry: Manufacturing
PC environment: Windows XP, Dell, IBM
Server environment: Windows 2003, 2008; Sun; Red Hat Linux; Unisys; HP DBMS: Access, DMS, Oracle, SQL, DB2
Address: Mission Bush Road, Glenbrook, Auckland
Website: www.nzsteel.co.nz
Key IS projects this year: Not disclosed.

New Zealand Steel, owned by parent company BlueScope Steel, committed $500,000 in steel products to aid in the rebuild of the Canterbury region after February’s Christchurch earthquake. “We will work closely with our customers and others in the region to identify community rebuilding projects that will be supported by New Zealand Steel’s products and building solutions package,” said company president Ross Murray.

In mid-March this year, BlueScope Steel announced plans to reorganise its ANZ business and senior management. A new consolidated organisation structure has been designed to better serve the Australian and New Zealand market for flat steel, with the reorganised trans-Tasman BlueScope Australia and New Zealand business to be forged from three existing business units.

The changes are largely in response to competition in Australia from imported steel, as the company has been hugely affected by the high cost of raw material costs, soft construction markets and competition from Chinese and Thai producers.

As Bluescope’s operation in this country, NZ Steel is the country’s sole producer of flat, rolled-steel products for the building, construction, manufacturing and agricultural industries, with approximately 60 percent of the organisation’s steel output exported to clients overseas.

NZ Steel uses an extensive, collaborative system for database management, including Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM and Unisys solutions, to meet its needs. SAP is used for both FMIS and ERP requirements, and is combined with Cognos for a complete EIS solution. The company’s local manager of information systems, Alister Park, was unable to comment on upcoming ICT projects this year.