When Queensland water restrictions increased in 1994, Moonrocks, a privately owned 800 acre farm in the St George Irrigation Area, had to diversify, moving away from it's cotton farming harvesting operation and making rock melons their predominant crop.
Thanks to a consistent high quality supply, Moonrocks gained a strong following Australia and world wide and were recognised in 2003 by being named Emerging Exporter of the year.
This phenomenal growth in business led to extensive operations throughout Moonrock's farm, packhouse, cool room and marketing. The company was confronted with an administrative situation they could not cope with with their current collection of stand-alone software packages that were old, slow, and required the re-entry of data from one system to another, not to mention the many supplementary processes using spreadsheets.
Ironbark Software came to the rescue providing Moonrocks with innovative farm management software that satisfied all of the company's needs in a single package, while providing a platform for further investment in IT as the business continues to grow.
Ironbark Software developed industry specific modifications to their standard farm management software system, which integrated financials, supply chain management, and mobile computing.
A critical area of activity for Moonrocks is their packing shed. This area has direct impact on revenue and also incurs significant costs due to it's high labour component. Ironbark Software's farm management software system ensures that the packing shed operation runs smoothly and accurately, and also becomes the basis for complete control over the supply chain and finances.
By using is PDAs with barcode scanners, Moonrocks is able to build up consignments by scanning out each pallet from the packhouse. The barcode allows the rock melons to be 100% traceable at the later stages of distribution, an important element of quality control and a requirement of supermarket chains.
With their new farm management software system, Moonrocks has been able to achieve a new level of control over every aspect of their business. They are now able to run their business efficiently and exploit opportunities in the market, instead of incurring unnecessary administration overheads.