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Antarctica New Zealand
As Antarctica New Zealand supports science and environmental programs at their Scott Base facility, so too do the supporting computer applications and technology have to be up to the task.
Antarctica New Zealand is responsible for developing, managing; and administering New Zealand's activities in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, particularly the Ross Sea region and for facilitating New Zealand scientific research in the region.
To fulfill these responsibilities Antarctica New Zealand manages a year-round permanent base in Antarctica – Scott Base. Located on Ross Island (3932 km from New Zealand and 1500 km from the South Pole) in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica, Scott Base provides services and accommodation for the many research parties and groups who visit Antarctica during the summer.
Much has changed from when building of the base began in 1956 with a modest complex of six separate buildings each connected by a covered way and where a hardy few carried out research in a hanger in temperatures sometimes below -45 degrees. Scott Base now in 2009 has a combined floor area of 4468 sq m of which 570 sq m is used for accommodation and operates year around providing a safe and warm environment for up to 85 guests on the Base at any time.
The Base is managed as a self-supported town, responsible for power generation, waste disposal and heating, with shared bedrooms, communal dining room and meals provided from an expertly chef run kitchen. Facilities available to visitors, scientists and researchers include transport, general equipment, laboratories, office space and communications.
Each year Antarctica New Zealand employs staff for the base, one summer only crew (October to February) and one winter-over crew. In providing for their guests the facility manager and staff have their work cut out for them to ensure that a safe environment is provided and supplies of heat, electricity, fresh water, food are maintained.
As Scott base supports science and environmental programmes so do the facility maintainers have to seek out better tools and methods to ensure that the facilities are properly supported with power, electricity, heating, communications and the objectives of the researchers and guests are met.
IT plays a significant role in delivering the necessary outcomes which ensure a safe working environment is maintained.
An important goal of the Antarctica New Zealand IT strategy is improving asset management at Scott Base. Effective asset management is not only critical to the successful outcomes of the scientific research but also in the provision of a safe working environment for all who live at the Base.
When contemplating computerized assistance to secure these outcomes what are the major considerations for IT staff and facility maintainers at Scott Base?
Greg Jack, IT Project Manager for Antarctica New Zealand, first enquired about SmartAsset when he heard of its seamless integrate with Microsoft Office products, as given that staff are recruited seasonally for Scott Base, business applications must be very intuitive and easy to learn. While happy with SmartAsset’s familiar “Office ribbon” based design, it was the ability to plan or view jobs within Outlook calendars, analyse data using Excel and the ability to view maintenance schedules within MS Project, that led to the final selection of SmartAsset for use at Scott Base.
SmartAsset supports multiple deployment options and Antarctica New Zealand has recently deployed SmartAsset on a mobile device. To save time, this ruggedized PDA allows base engineers to enter inspection or job data on-site, then simply dock and synchronise data with SmartAsset automatically.
On the technical side he was also looking for a .NET asset management application that would integrate well within their existing Microsoft-centric technology stack. Antarctica New Zealand now intend to more closely couple SmartAsset with their Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and their ERP - Dynamics NAV.
Greg’s, sentiments with regards to user friendliness and system compatibility are echoed by Scott Base Maintenance Engineer Kevin Rigarlsford. Kevin had for some time been seeking software to support facilities maintenance at Scott Base.
Kevin needed sophisticated outcomes from maintenance management software, but was only too aware that this can come at a price should the software user interface not be intuitive for his users and create user adoption issues. One of the problems that Kevin faces is an annual turnover of all Engineering staff who perform the maintenance and run the ‘Life Support Systems’ as most employment contracts are for 13 months periods. In short any maintenance software/programme has to be extremely user friendly and intuitive. When he read the tag line in a brochure describing a product called SmartAsset claiming “Asset Management functionality deployed within software that you already use” he felt it worth of a follow up.
Indeed the claim was correct. SmartAsset deploys from within the Microsoft Office suite, a product already familiar to many people within engineering and electrical trades, so potentially learning to use the new application was merely an extension of their current knowledge of a product already familiar to them.
SmartAsset has been installed at Scott Base and is being successfully used by the engineering group to help ensure visitors and staff alike enjoy a safe and productive work and lifestyle environment on this otherwise inhospitable Continent.
For further information see also this Microsoft Case Study http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=4000005389
