Installed by Warrnambool City Council last week, the state of the art Aleis system allows animals to be processed, weighed and read digitally.

"This is the very latest in reading technology, there's no mucking around with this," manager Paul White said.

"Other systems are time-consuming and labour-intensive in my opinion, whereas we have a system where we can read them on the way in and out and transfer the ownership with ease.

"We weigh about 90 lots an hour."

The data is processed in real-time and then transferred to a central database.

"The information is fed to the computer and then to a database," Mr White said.

"From there the software creates a file and sends it to the National Livestock Identification Scheme for change of ownership, whether that's to a processor or other producer or feedlot.

"When they come in they have to go through a single panel to be branded and that's when we scan them, and that happens without anyone knowing.

"When we sell them they are scanned on the way out and again it's done without anyone really knowing it's happening."

Their old reader had lasted 16 years since it was installed in 2003.

"When we installed that in 2003 we were on the cutting edge of technology at that point, we were the first ones in the world to install a six-way reader," Mr White said.

"We had groups here from the US, Canada, the UK and all around the world to look at the system we were using."

He said as the technology evolved, parts for the old readers were discontinued.

"They changed it and don't make any parts with the old one, which is always the way," he said.

"I've been the manager here for over 20 years, we've seen a lot of changes in that time, from tail tags to electronic tags.

"This upgrade is the most modern and latest technology out there.

"We do it quicker than anyone in Australia because we scan and weigh together.

"A lot of people use a big wand and scan them individually in the pens they are going to be sold in, whereas we just scan them all together in vendor and buyer lots and can track them right through."

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