Aust database boon

PACIFIC Exporters of Seafood and seafood products will find FISHMAD the Australian Fish Market Analysis Database very useful.

Operated by Fisheries Services Brisbane (ISD Fax 617 2293702) in a joint venture with the Australian Fisheries Research and Development Corporation one of the major assets of the service is its market and consumption database.

FRDIC has spent some AS 1.2 million in a two-year national consumption survey of Australian seafood consumption, preferences, buying habits and trends.

Covering the spectrum of in-home and out of-home private consumption and buying by the trade, institutional, hospitality and catering markets the Australian Natural Seafood Consumption Survey offers com mercial and market intelligence of a very high order.

Subscribers receive a copy of the databse for installation on their own PC plus hard copy summary and copies of the master questions. Subscribers can load the data into a range of spreadsheet or Database formats on IBM or IBM clone PCs.

A program of refreshing and updating the data is in place with new surveys data being added each year. Seafood exporters in Canada, Europe, Scandinavia and Asia are accessing the service. To PIM it makes sense that as Australia is an important regional market Pacific seafood exporters should avail themselves of the service.

Entry costs are low (AS6OO to AS 1200 PA) and most processors and exporters would already have PC equipment and software to analyse the data.

Vanutu Resource Project Running The Vanuatu Resource Information System (VANRIS) is a Vanuatu government development with the technical assistance of Australia’s CSIRO and the Queensland Forestry Services with funding provided by AIDAB (Australian International Development Assistance Bureau).

John McAlpine, of CSIRO, said that VANRIS was vindication of the process of applying appropriately affordable levels of computing technology in the Pacific to assist in the management and planning of natural resources.

VANRIS successfully marries a geographically referenced database developed in Microsoft Fox Pro with a Mapping System developed in MAPINFO and a user friendly interface for data analysis.

Over six Vanuatu departments collaborated in the development of the system. VANRI now will assist in Management and Planning in a range of Government areas from Agriculture to Forestry to Local Government. Cur rently storing over one million data items VANRIS has been designed to row and evolve under local Vanuatu support.

The last stage of the project was to convert VANRIS to Windows which will provide a higher level of user friendliness through the GUI interface.

PNG’s New AIDAB-funded Computer Project Gordon Bilney, Australia’s Minister

for Development Co-operation and

Pacific Island Affairs announced in the 1993/1994 program funding of A 53.7 million for maintenance and expansion of a computer based Re source Information System for PNG.

Funding by AIDAB with technical support provided by Australia’s CSIRO the PNG RIS will be devel oped using Microsoft Fox Pro, MAPINFO and Windows.

Mr Bilney is expected to make further announcement on this project at the PNG seminar AIDAB is sponsoring later this month in Bris bane.

ASMA Shows Metrics

Appropriate for Pacific The Australian Software Metrics Association (ASMA) with the recent Incorporation of the Queensland Chapter is now represented in every state expect Western Australia.

Tough economic times have increasingly compelled IT managers to apply productivity measurement as well as more traditional cost benefit analysis to IT within organisations as senior management more closely quiz IT budgets.

Not only applicable to large organisations or mainframe sites Software Metrics is increasingly being applied in large and small organisations can be cost critical.

Two special interest groups, (SIGs), one in ASMA Victoria and one in ASMA Queensland are developing through research and case studies very important rules and methodoligies inthis area of Windows developments Metrics.

The Secretary of ASMA Queensland, Jack Van der Zwan said, “ASMA is very interested in hearing from IT professionals in the Pacific. Given sufficient interest we would be happy to help any groups who may wish to organise and share in the data and information resources we are collecting.

One of the features of ASMA is the excellentt communica tions between Chapters. We have been able by discussions and negotiation to have each chapter set up SIGs and research groups that concentrate on specific areas”.

He said “this saves on duplicating work and conserves resources. We then all share nationally in the output from each SIG. For instance Victoria is very strong in function point counting, Queensland is looking at CASE and System Life Cycle determinations while Sydney is very strong in Productivity measurement”.

“This pooled information is being built up into a body of knowledge that would be very applicable in the Pacific region. It has the potential to save much time in the development of metrics programs and skills with a consequent cost saving benefit in IT for many organisations”.

ASMA held its first .national conference in Sydney on November 18 and 19.