BRONZE making is a centuries-old trade, but Uralla’s Phoenix Foundry is using high-speed internet to take their business into the future.
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Ever since hooking up to the National Broadband Network’s wireless service late last year, the business is forging ahead with global operations.
Information technology manager Nathan Clark says the new connection means the foundry’s internet runs five to 10 times faster than before.
“It’s made global compunction much easier,” Mr Clark said.
“In terms of operations speeds, uploading to websites is a lot quicker now.
“We can provide our customers with a faster service.
“A lot of our customers log into our host database system for accounts information, auto tracking and tracing
“We’re hoping to be able to expand based upon that … using the same amount of staff with a higher service to the customers. “With the increased speed and bandwidth, we’re able to provide more services concurrently to them.
“We’re able to put more back into the company to expand the company, grow our market space and hopefully add more staff.”
The foundry currently has a workforce in Uralla of about 40 people, making it one of the largest employers in the town.
General manager Joe Campbell says the business’s online presence made it such a competitive service.
“It’s the way the world is going – the internet is everywhere now,” Mr Campbell said.
“It’s you’re not up to speed, you can fall behind.
“We’re getting orders from America, we’re getting orders from Canada, we’re getting orders from the United Kingdom.
“We have an online ordering system now, so customers can sit down with their family members on a web-based system, order a plaque, push a button and it comes through to our system.”
The operation was streamlined with the help of the Armidale Digital Economy Implementation Group coordinator Alun Davies.
“Their ADSL was terrible, but we eventually got them on the NBN fixed wireless,” Mr Davies said.
“In this case, they were very lucky.
“Uralla has fixed NBN wireless on the outskirts of town - they were right on the borderline.”
Mr Davies said he would love to see the township of Uralla connected to the higher-speed network, and said it was unfortunate the wireless connection was not available to everyone.
“Work is scheduled for late 2017,” he said.
“They’re very, very constricted because of the guidelines.
“If they let everyone jump on NBN fixed wireless, it would swamp the service.”
Mr Clark said it was great to see such a traditional trade being furthered by modern innovations.
“The process hasn’t really changed since the Bronze Age, back when man started pouring metal,” he said.
“But we’re at both spectrums.
“We’ve got the latest technology in the process as well.”