We are closing off on another financial year that seems to have come around more quickly than ever. Taking a moment to reflect on our business journey of this past year, I can see why, as our company has grown from strength to strength.
I feel honoured that we are now providing employment for 97 highly qualified professionals, onboarding 16 new team members just this financial year. We are well over industry averages for gender diversity, with females representing 29 percent of employees at 4Tel and 25 percent at 4AI Systems. Our sponsorships of Newcastle Women in Engineering (NUWiE), NUbots and NU Racing are helping to craft the next generation of talent.
The opening of our new office space in Newcastle in April was a highlight for our team and a catalyst for business growth. With our existing office at capacity, we had been forced to place additional resourcing on hold. The new space offers 40 additional desks, three meeting rooms and a workshop, so we have been able to quickly expand resources to meet work demand and restructure project-specific teams.
4Tel and 4AI Systems products continue to spark interest internationally and we are already gearing up for this year’s InnoTrans, to be held in Berlin in September, where we welcome the opportunity to engage with the world market.
We continue to invest in our North American efforts, participating in major conferences such as International Heavy Haul and Next-Gen Rail Systems. Supporting these efforts, we received a USA trademark for our 4AI Systems tagline, Doing Boring Better.
4Tel’s work in Africa operating a train control system in Kenya remains steady. We look forward to participating in the Africa Rail conference next week in Johannesburg, to explore new opportunities to help shape the future of their industry.
In our domestic Australian market, our attendance at various conferences, such as AusRail and Rail Safety, plays an important role in showcasing the benefits of 4AI Systems’ technology and our proven 4Tel solutions, such as TMACS and 4PTW. Our innovative solutions have seen us named a finalist in award programs such as Rail Industry, Rail Safety, InnovationAus, and Australian AI.
Our development team has been busy working behind the scenes to refresh our software so programs are operating at their best and staying at the forefront of our industry. Congratulations to the team for working together to adopt new processes to more efficiently achieve project goals.
As part of our commitment to continuous improvement, we hired a dedicated resource to comprehensively assess our engineering processes, to ensure we continue to exceed client and industry expectations as our operations grow. This initiative complements our ISO 27001 certification for Information Security Management Systems (ISMS), received last October, and our ongoing ISO 9001 certification for Quality Management.
Additionally, we migrated our HR and payroll system to streamline the lifecycle of employees, offering automation, transparency and accountability across HR processes and company expectations.
We remain exceedingly proud of our friendly, happy and family-orientated company culture. We enjoyed celebrating numerous promotions and appointments to full-time roles, the retirement of two longstanding team members, two weddings, and six beautiful babies. What an impressive tally!
Thank you to all of our hardworking staff, our dedicated leadership team, and our supportive clients who make our work so rewarding and enjoyable. We look forward to another successful and busy year ahead.
Joanne Wust
Group CEO
4Tel and 4AI Systems
