One of Australia's top superannuation funds, Health Super Pty Ltd, has just completed one of its largest business technology projects in recent years.

As the industry fund for Australia's health and community services sector, Health Super has assets of more than $8 billion and is ranked among the top 15 per cent of super funds by SuperRatings.

The project saw the replacement of a legacy e-business system with a packaged application from Bravura Solutions, which handles the full transaction lifecycle of superannuation for fund members, employers and its call centre. The application delivers 24/7 web access for more than 220,000 fund members and 3,500 employers that pay super contributions into the fund.

Project management specialist, Protegic, was appointed to manage this 18-month business solution initiative. This included requirements definition, which commenced in July 2008, request for proposal, vendor selection, contract negotiation, planning, mobilisation, full implementation, testing and training.

Health Super chief operations officer, Carol McKelson-Timmins, said the project gave an immediate and important benefit and significant business improvement as the fund looks to its longer term strategy for technology platforms over the next 12 months.

"We needed to improve the web services offered to members and employers and upgrade the integrity of data that enters the organisation from external sources.

"In addition, we have implemented new policies and business rules for the management of members' contributions and employers' payroll submissions and these had to be taken into account in the system," she said.

The new and improved systems now support, streamline and automate the management of all contributions, as well as providing end-to-end member account transacting on the web.

"Protegic delivered the project on time and on budget and with all the features and functions we requested," said Ms McKelson-Timmins. "They worked closely with Bravura who provide our superannuation applications, and it resulted in a very effective project partnership.

"Extensive risk analysis was undertaken by Protegic project managers at the commencement and during the course of the project, ensuring a successful outcome," she said.

Business benefits for Health Super include the replacement of an aging system with Bravura Solutions' ePASS, improved members online facility, improved batch employer contribution processing facility, improved call centre back office support facility and reduced workloads for the administration and IT teams.

"In addition, our internal staff acquired considerable project management expertise and skill having worked with the three Protegic project managers for the duration of the project. And knowing that the project was being managed professionally provided a higher level of confidence in a successful outcome with excellent documentation, training and post implementation review.

"While using professional project managers is a significant investment, it is unlikely that this project would have been delivered on time and on budget without Protegic running it. We appreciate that project management is a specialist skill and as soon as it was implemented, we started reaping the benefits," added Ms McKelson-Timmins.