Compatible with mobile devices, Assura’s software can be used anywhere.
Assura’s software can be used in the office or in the field.
Assura's software being used in the field on a mobile device.
Assura’s Adaptable Asset-Management Platform
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ssura Software is a Christchurch, New Zealand–based technology company that builds highly configurable assetand case-management solutions. Its products are used by several large irrigation schemes—the Kiwi equivalent of U.S. irrigation districts—to manage their assets and record health and safety risks and hazards. Using Assura’s platform in the office on a computer or in the field on a mobile phone app, irrigation scheme employees or farmers can keep track of what tasks need to be done and the current status of their land and assets. In this interview, Assura Managing Director Hamish Howard speaks with Irrigation Leader Editor-in-Chief Kris Polly about Assura’s platform and the many uses it can be put toward. Kris Polly: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
24 | IRRIGATION LEADER
Kris Polly: So your service provides a record of when assets are managed and maintained? Hamish Howard: Yes. The platform contains records of all your assets, and each one of those assets has a life cycle. The assets may require inspection on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual basis, or a weekly inspection and an annual audit, or some other combination of maintenance activities. Our software provides reminders to the appropriate employees to go and do those things. Employees will have a list of tasks assigned to them on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, or according to a schedule, and if they do not do them, the tasks will be escalated up the food chain on a time frame you have determined. At the end of the day, you’ve got a fully auditable list of what has been done (or not done) by whom and when. All that information is recorded and can be searched. You can easily build your own reports, displaying the information in the way that you need. For example, Mel Brooks of MHV uses the health and safety information to prepare her board reports. Mel and her team also use the software to make decisions about MHV’s assets. Our product gives MHV a view of where its efforts are being directed and in turn, the money that needs to be spent.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF ASSURA SOFTWARE.
Hamish Howard: I am the managing director of Assura Software, which in U.S. terms would be similar to the chief executive officer. I am also a shareholder in the business, so I have some skin in the game. I grew up on a mixed-cropping (sheep and crop) farm in Mid Canterbury, so I’m familiar with the issues of agriculture and irrigation. I’m also very familiar with moving irrigators. More recently, I grew and successfully sold an information technology business and then bought Assura Software, which is a configurable workflow software platform. If you played with Legos as a kid, you know that how you put those Lego blocks together determines the solution you get. Our software is the same in that we’ve built the blocks, and they can be put together for specific purposes. Just as the same Lego set can be used to build a car, a plane, or a boat, Assura’s software can be configured to manage assets, health and safety needs, a complaints process, or other issues. It’s very much a low-code/no-code approach. The pieces of our Lego set are digital workflows. The fields you put on these
workflows and the business rules you wrap around them will determine the solution you end up with. One relevant example is the use of our software by Mayfield Hinds Valetta (MHV ) Water, a large scheme in the Canterbury Plains area of New Zealand’s South Island. It has been configured to provide MHV with two or three things, including health and safety management and inspections. It is a highly configurable solution that MHV’s staff continue to adapt and develop to meet their changing needs.
