Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre

Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre (MECC) is one of the largest convention and exhibition organisations in the southern hemisphere. It features two theatres, banquet space for up to 2000 guests, boasts 30,000 sq. m. of uninterrupted space, and the Centre has the largest single floor, pillar-less exhibition area in the Southern Hemisphere. It hosts the largest public and trade exhibitions in Australia including the International Motor Show, which attracts in excess of 250,000 people.

Summary Details

• Date of Engagement: July 2001 to date
• Services Provided: Analysis and Consultation, Strategy Development, Interface Design, Information Architecture Design, Specification, Custom Development, System Integration, Product Development and Brand Development, EBMS (Events Based Management System) development and integration, AutoCAD and 3D Floor Planning
• Products Supplied: Lantern CMS, Events Module, Forms Generator Module, Messenger Module, News Module, Security Manager, Charting Analysis Tools and Did You Know Module
• Current Status: Morpheum continues to provide ongoing custom development services and projects. The current Intranet and Online Service Orders projects are nearing completion and deployment

Their Initial Requirements

In 2001 MECC put in place a strategy to leverage Internet based technology to move their Internet presence from a general brochure-ware site to a fully functioning information and service delivery environment. For the last three years Morpheum has worked with MECC to implement their strategic services online, which has included content management as well as business-focused custom development to support system integration, online transactions and online service order management to name a few.

The specified objectives of their brief was to:

• Identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges within the current organisation;
• Through executive 'Thought Leadership' undertake consultation in order to development a short, medium and long-term online services strategy.
• Based on the strategy, propose a new Internet information architecture, graphic design and distributed authoring management model; and
• Technical support and services for the establishment of an internal hosting facility for the deployment, implement and ongoing management of the solution.

Our Solutions

Morpheum implemented a solution based on our award winning content management application suite 'Lantern'.

The project implementation provided for extensive consultation and research to inform the initial delivery of an online strategy. Based on the recommendations within this strategy, Morpheum undertook broader consultation and analysis to inform the information architecture, creative design and workflow management model.

Based on approval of the interface, Morpheum undertook custom development and integration to support specific business requirements associated to event and space data and deployed Lantern CMS in conjunction with serval modules to support for example, self-management of News, Client Newsletters and Forms.

The MECC site was launch and immediately identified as the best practice benchmark site within their industry. With the engagement of Morpheum as the sole web development contract provider, Morpheum has continued to provide support and additional development to ensure the ongoing evolution and continued status of best practice.

Additional Works

After the successful redevelopment and implementation of the corporate Internet site, Morpheum has undertaken the following addition projects:

Yarrabanks Website

MECC is the lead agency and sponsor of a consortium of venue and service provides within the Yarrabanks Precinct. A requirement was identified to develop and online facility that would showcase the precinct and support the international sales process.

MECC chose to leverage their existing Lantern CMS product through a multiple site license to support the development of the Yarrabanks site. Morpheum provided end-to-end including interface and graphic design, specification, build and deployment of the facility.

As the site is managed within the existing Lantern product, MECC has the ability to both single source documents and multiple site published as well as extend authoring access to other key agencies through the browser based distributed authoring interface. 

Online Budget System

The online budget system was identified in the online strategy as an internal business process that would provide extensive process improvement through the development of an automated web based application. Morpheum undertook analysis, specification and custom development to provide a web based budget estimate and approval process that integrated to their financial system and provide final expense ledger budget allocations.

The system enable managers to source and manipulate historical data through a reporting and charting tool in order to leverage previous expense learnings. Once a budget allocation had been specified by the Manager for the appropriate accounts, an approval process was initiate.

The solution reduced a manual eight-week process to a seamless quality control two-week online process.

Intranet Strategy

Once the Lantern CMS environment had been extended to a multiple site platform, Morpheum undertook analysis and consultation to inform an Intranet development project that would also leverage this investment.

The strategy defined a solution that support internal communications, web based content management and work process automation through integration with back end systems such EBMS, CHRIS, AutoCAD, etc.

This strategy was review and approved with the provision of budgeting for development and implementations.

In-Progress Projects

The following projects are in progress and due for completion prior to November 2004.

Intranet Development

Based on approval of the Intranet Strategy, Morpheum is currently undertaking end-to-end services for the development of a corporate Intranet which is scheduled for implementation in September 2004.

Online Service Orders

The Online Services Orders was identified initially within the Intranet Strategy project. However, analysis identified that process improvement and data quality would be better improved through the automation of the client engagement process via a secure online extranet facility.

As a result of the recommendations, Morpheum is currently undertaking a pilot development that will be trial with a specified number of repeat clients. The system will enable clients to data enter the event requirements via the web with data validation and rules imposed client side. Successful implementation will provide extensive time saving and resolution of data quality and sales expectation management issues.

Internet Virtual Tour and 3D Floor Plans

Morpheum is currently in analysis and consultation phase for the full redevelopment of the MECC Virtual Tour capability and provision of online 3D floor plans through integration with AutoCAD.