Hewlett-Packard Hong Kong has signed a HK$23.4 million contract with the Government Supplies Department (GSD) to provide a turnkey system to manage the process of supplying common user items to over 80 government departments, agencies and the other non-government organisations.
The new Goods On-line Ordering, Distribution, Stock Management & Accounting Network (Goodsman) will go live in September to coincide with the move of GSD warehousing activities to a new purpose-built facility at Lo Shue Pai in Chai Wan.
Goodsman, which runs on an HP9000 platform, replaces mainframe-based systems that date back to the mid-1970s.
The new system will enable GSD to improve customer service while realising significant savings through staff reductions, through the use of less storage accommodation and through lower levels of inventory. It has been calculated that the cost of this investment can be recovered in about 5 years.
GSD currently receives about 6,500 requisition orders a month for around 20,500 different items. At present the order process requires customers to precommit funds through the Treasury's computer system before filing a requisition order with GSD; the accounts are debited subsequent to delivery.
Once Goodsman becomes fully operational, the system can provide on-line ordering function. A bank of modems will support up to 100 remote login sessions on Goodsman from over 400 PC terminals located in customers' offices.