Paua are shellfish native to New Zealand. They are a type of abalone and their polished shells reveal a beautiful shimmering rainbow of colors which have become an icon, as any traveler to New Zealand will tell you since souvenir shops are full of polished paua shell items.
The Oceanz Blue business is akin to a fish farm, but they raise paua not for their shells but for their meat, primarily for export to Asian markets where it is a highly valued delicacy.
Everything Oceanz Blue have done in their business has been innovative. They pioneered the laboratory-based spawning of adult paua. They designed their own sea water pumping and tank technology for their Nursery and Grow Out facilities. And of course they designed their own operational procedures and inventory management system.
One of the founding directors of Oceanz Blue is a professional business analyst very skilled with Microsoft Excel, so he designed an elegant Excel solution for paua inventory management during the establishment phase of Oceanz Blue. But as volumes grew, the Excel solution became overloaded and slow.
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When their Excel solution for Inventory Management became overloaded, they called us in. We designed a custom database solution modeled on the existing Excel system. Plus, a range of new growth projection and operational reports were added to help with day-to-day decisions on redistribution between tanks to maintain optimum conditions for growth. The system incorporates a set of aquaculture-specific business rules that no package software for inventory management would ever have. Indeed, many of the rules had to be invented by Oceanz Blue themselves, and they continue to refine them as they learn more about how to optimize their operation.
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