New hardware platforms to replace the aging and expensive current range were the main focus for the review period. By June 2011, the iS100 series of devices had passed their qualification tests and were made available for final field testing. The iS200 and iS300 series of telematics devices are being completed and will be produced in large volumes in the first quarter  of 2012. The iS100 is now in volume production for application in the insurance, SVR and light-fleet management markets. The production facility can produce up to 15 000 of these units per month.

Ctrack Online Lite™ was released after developing a ‘light’ version forDiscovery Insure. Ctrack Online Lite provides a lightweight and easy-touse interface to viewing telematics data for one’s vehicle. This product segmentation will allow for a broader market offering.

Ctrack Mobile was launched during the year. It provides basic vehicle position and status on smartphones such as Apple iPhone and Windows mobile devices. The mobile application completes the software suite of the Ctrack web-based offering.

C-Drive™ is a new product specifically designed for driver-behaviour management applications. This domain of driver management is becoming a mainstream requirement in fleet management and Ctrack’s driver-behaviour indicator (DBI) and driver-behaviour software module was recently extensively evaluated as part of a major fleet management acquisition process. The DBI unit is a dashboardmounted electronic device that provides real-time driver rating feedback, which results in drivers adjusting their driving techniques to reduce risk, fuel consumption and emissions. A comprehensive fleet asset management product, FleetConnect™, was released as part of Ctrack’s end-to-end fleet management product portfolio. FleetConnect allows the fleet owner to manage specific fleet-related expenses such as fuel, maintenance, fines, licences and tollgates. Trend-analysis software allows the user to identify costly elements in fleet operations which, in turn, result in quick savings when appropriate actions are taken.

Ctrack Mobile Resource™ is a mobile resource management product that will enable Ctrack’s customers to fully automate their sales, installation and delivery workforce units. This exciting new product is currently being evaluated for Ctrack’s own internal use and will be rolled out globally in the last quarter of 2011.

DigiCore’s research and development resources of highly qualified software engineers now total almost 100 staff, spread between the company’s Centurion head office and the Leeds office in the UK.

The UK development team is now fully integrated as part of the development group at head office and participates in product development for all regions.

DigiCore’s product support group, headed by Morné Combrink, has restructured its service offering. All regions are being restructured and trained to offer level one, two and three technical support to customers. Level four product support is offered from head office.

The restructure allows for a rapid response time to system failures.

With customers in almost all time zones around the world, this new infrastructure forms the basis of a round-the-clock support system required in this market.

MANUFACTURING

In the first quarter of the year, the new NX40 was produced in high volumes. The product was well received and associated production savings were passed on to end users, resulting in significant price reductions.

High-volume production of the iS100 series (NX50 family) was scheduled for May 2011, however the tsunami that hit Japan in March 2011 effectively halted all processor manufacture used in the iS100 series. This delayed production till the third quarter of 2011.

In June 2011, Discovery and Ctrack launched the Discovery Insure product, with immediate high-volume production requirements for the NX40. More than 7 000 units have already been produced to meet this demand.

The production facility in Durban, managed by Alf van Rensburg, now boasts fully automated test equipment to deal with high-volume production requirements for the NX40 and iS100 series units.

Capacity has been increased to handle over 15 000 units per month.

An order to manufacture 12 000 Solo units was received from the South African Police Services (SAPS) in November 2010. While this presented a significant challenge for component sourcing and production throughput, the order was successfully executed on schedule.

CORPORATE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

In line with King III recommendations on IT, DigiCore has appointed Bill Reeler as full-time chief information officer. This appointment also addresses the organisation’s need for information, communication and IT services which have increased significantly in recent years.

In line with DigiCore’s 100% business continuity strategy, we have implemented a full dual-redundant disaster recovery IT site and infrastructure.

This has been a significant financial investment as all IT is now not only fully redundant in the data centres, but also duplicated at a secondary site.