With the currency changeover just around the corner, the banks in the Republic are gearing up to supply the new currency. Around 220 million euro notes and over one billion coins will be distributed in the state. Tipperary based Independent Mushroom Producer's System (IMPS) main man Brendan Howling, is currently in the midst of converting the system to euroIMPS. Growers are very aware that the clock is ticking and the rush to be ready for conversion is on. New developments in the pipeline include an updated system. This will allow the majority of the daily data input (who picked what from where, the pickers' hours worked and products shipped out to customers during the day), to be captured at source by the pickers themselves and/or the person who collects and collates all the picked mushrooms. At the end of each day this data would be taken on floppy disk to the main office system, which would then automatically analyse the data and update IMPS, at the press of a button or the click of a mouse! It should cut the time a grower needs to spend at the computer by three quarters. That can't be a bad thing. A grower's dream: weekly wages calculated without ever touching the keyboard.
