ECONZ - Our History

ECONZ began operations in 1971, pioneering a solution for Laboratory Diagnostic Services (now Diagnostic Medlab), that connected medical instruments directly to a computer and thus avoided manual input by keypunch operators. Over the last thirty-five years, ECONZ has been involved in a number of interesting projects.

Here are a few highlights:

In the 70'S

• ECONZ designed and built New Zealand's first commercially-available microprocessor-based product - a laboratory differential-counter
  
  
• Temperzone
  ECONZ automated the operation of lathes and drilling machines with the use of a computer interface.
  
  
• 'Black Box' interfaces
  ECONZ produced many flavours of computer-to-device interfaces, including CompuTelex - allowing nation-wide and international messaging between computers. A pre-cursor to email!
  
  
• NZ Trotting Association
  ECONZ connected Trotting Clubs throughout New Zealand to the central headquarters in Christchurch using phone-lines - one of New Zealand's early modem-based data networks. This allowed the publishing of race cards with information on the field and drivers to be automated. Prior to this the information had been forwarded by phone or mail. 

In the 80'S

• St John Ambulance
  ECONZ designed and built consoles and interfaced them with phone and vehicles. This was ECONZ' first radio-based fleet dispatch system and it was achieved using an entirely analogue radio network. The system remained in use by St John Ambulance for over a decade.
  
  
• Auckland Co-op and Blue Star Taxis
  ECONZ designed and built New Zealand's first computerised Taxi Dispatch systems.
  
  
• AucklandElectric Power Board
  ECONZ designed a secure digital system of communications for field staff that enabled job information to be sent to in-vehicle printers.
   
  
• Automobile Association
  Again, ECONZ designed and built a fully-automated dispatch system with call-taking, computer dispatch via radio to mobile terminals, and a map display showing location of vehicles and jobs.

In the 90'S

• Telecom
  ECONZ deployed a number of solutions including the Telecom Cable Faults Dispatch system, the Telecom Sealink with ship-to-shore phone link, and the Telecom National Faults super project which connected 1500 vehicles to the National Test System. This system achieved the target of 99.999% up time.
  
  
• Fletcher Challenge Forests, Logging and Dispatch Division
  ECONZ implemented a computer aided dispatch and management system to manage the entire logging distribution process.
  
  
• CourierPost
  ECONZ designed a nation-wide data dispatch system including a world first hand-held digital signature-capture device, allowing web-based viewing of signatures in near real-time.
  
  
• Royal Automobile Club Queensland, Australia
  ECONZ installed a job dispatch and management system involving real time updates from the field.

The Millenium

• America's Cup
  ECONZ provided the technology that gathered and transmitted positional data and on-board weather conditions from the racing yachts to shore via the Telecom mobile CDPD network in 2000, and again using CDMA in 2003. The data was used to produce real time graphics for television and Internet viewing.
  
  
• NRMA (Australia)
  ECONZ implemented a Computer Aided Dispatch System for the NRMA's Emergency Roadside Assistance vehicles including mapping, GPS, job dispatch, monitoring and automated escalation..
  
  
• Downers Australia
  ECONZ implemented a job management and dispatch system that automated, streamlined and managed their entire job dispatch process.
  
  
• ECONZ Wireless Cellphone Products
  ECONZ introduces EService and Timecard, low-cost cellphone-based work management and worker productivity solutions. 

The Future

• From off-the-shelf hosted job dispatch/management tools, to highly tailored multi-million dollar systems, the ECAD, EService, Timecard and ESolutions products and services from ECONZ have got your business covered.
  


• 2010’s: World-leading open-source Power Management Systems.