The Department of Education and Training is set to roll out a new IT platform in 2016 designed to automate manual and paper based processes involved with apprenticeship administration.
Processes that will be automated include registration, new claims lodgement and payment delivery.
The platform, dubbed the Australian Apprenticeships Management System (AAMS), is part of the federal government’s plan to improve support for employers and apprentices.
AAMS will replace the Youth Internet Management System (TYIMS), which was used to administer payments to apprentices.
AAMS is designed to connect with some of the largest government IT systems in Australia, including Centrelink and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). AAMS will also support a network of interfaces between the federal, state and territory government systems including: training.gov.au, the Australian Business Register and Australia Post
Based on Microsoft Dynamics customer relationship management (CRM) and Oracle process automation, the platform will become the central store for contracts and employer, apprentice and network provider information.
In addition, the platform will allow apprenticeship network providers to engage with apprentices and employers while also tracking their progress.
According to NEC Australia, which won the contract to build the system, it will create up to 29,000 contracts per month, and support approximately 100 different payment types, as well as process up to 135,000 transactions per month. AAMS will replace TYIMS on 1 July 2016 and will support the recently launched Australian Apprenticeship Support Network (AASN).
In August, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) signed a four-year support centre services contract with NEC Australia.
NEC will support 12,000 users at 160 sites around the world.
Through the global support centre at DFAT, NEC Australia will become the first point of contact for ICT services for the department. At the same time, NEC Australia will work with DFAT to undertake a body of work to improve the government agency's ICT service capabilities through the delivery of a new IT service management tool and the introduction of industry standard service delivery processes.