Norca Consulting was formed in 2000 by a group
of OR and Statistical Practitioners to address the need for a coordinated approach
to the marketing of leading edge, high quality Mathematical, Statistical and
Operations Research expertise. Norca
has been formed as a network of collaborating individuals who can provide an
extremely flexible approach to data analysis and modelling, and also to
facilitate the synergies of a group of people with similar but complementary quantitative
skills and experience.
The aim in
establishing NORCA Consulting was to create a quality consultancy with a smooth
work flow based on long term relationships.
This will enable us to better deploy our key strengths in problem
identification and structuring, to the mutual
benefit of ourselves and our clients.
NORCA’s Core
Philosophy
Our philosophy is
the provision of an expert modelling service combining deliverable outcomes to
clients with a focus on skills transfer. We provide value to companies wanting to
avoid the overhead of specialist internal consultants, but wishing,
nevertheless, to build and sustain analytical and business modelling skills
within their business. NORCA realises
this can best be achieved by helping clients’ operating units to
do things better themselves. Our
approach is the result of a conscious plan, devised to deliver a marketable
service based on the skills of our people.
Business
Objectives
Vision Statement
NORCA Consulting
Pty. Ltd brings our analytical skills and experience to management, to
facilitate the process of superior business decisions in Australia and beyond.
NORCA Consulting
Pty. Ltd is to work with all levels of management to support their decision making
processes, through creative problem structuring data driven modelling and
pro-active implementation.
Business
Values & Responsibilities
Business Values
In all our dealings, NORCA will:
·
Respect and
value our clients.
·
Treat Staff
and Associates as our greatest asset.
·
Endeavour to
obtain the best expertise for specific tasks.
·
Act with
integrity and honesty in all business dealings.
·
Respect
client confidentiality at all times.
·
Maintain the
integrity of problem solving processes and outcomes.
·
Respect and
utilise experience.
·
Adhere to
HS&E principles.
·
Abide by the
Laws of the Land.
·
Respect
Governments at all levels.
Business Responsibilities
Four areas of responsibility are
recognised:
To Shareholders
To create the long-term value in the business
To Clients
Develop and provide services which offer value in
terms of price and quality, supported by the appropriate technological
professional and commercial expertise and a high level of customer service.
To Company Personnel
To provide all personnel and outside consultants with
good safe working conditions, training and development opportunities, suitable
compensation and leisure time.
To Society
To conduct business as a responsible business operating
in the community, observing both Federal and State laws and giving due regard
to health, safety and environmental standards and societal aspirations.
Unique
Characteristics
The NORCA
structure and mode of operation have been consciously designed to maximise the
delivered value from the following unique characteristics:
·
A select
group with a wide range of experience that can cater for a diverse range of
clients and types of technical work
·
A group of
specialists with over 130 years of collective experience in OR methodology and
service delivery
·
A structure
which retains the cost advantage and personal service of an independent
consultant with the back-up of a larger group
·
A dedicated
core group supplemented by a wide support network of experienced specialist
practitioners
·
Strong links
with universities which provide access to world class experts in particular
fields
·
Structured to
quickly react to client needs
·
Focus on
mentoring of client staff
·
Emphasis on
skills transfer to client staff
Our Approach
We provide an independent customer focused service,
taking into account the social, cultural and environmental issues of an
enterprise. This is where an Operations
Research orientated management consultancy comes into its own. Our personnel have a wide range of business
experience and our links with tertiary institutions & academic research
centres provide a strong backup capability.
It is very easy to fall into the trap of defining
performance as a wish list of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs),
with only a cursory review of their inherent trade-offs. Performance is a complex, multi-faceted
activity where day-to-day trade-offs are inevitable. It is important that a resolution to a problem does not bias the
day-to-day decisions / behaviour to the achievement of a single KPI, e.g.,
minimise costs without regard to the other KPIs. By structuring the set of inputs of business or social units
against the set of desirable outputs, it is possible to arrive at decisions
that provide the best balanced outcome for customers, employees and
shareholders.
“Another trap is that for large spreadsheets the issue
is how many errors there are, not whether an error exists.” Good model design can help avoid these
problems and the best way to start is by auditing existing spreadsheet models -
and also the wider management decision processes surrounding the models. NORCA Consulting is well qualified to audit
corporate spreadsheet models and decision processes.
How do we work?
We use a staged
approach to propose, develop and implement effective management decision
aids. The core approach is to use the
discipline of model building from a scientific standpoint in an Operations
Research framework. Extensive use is
made of data analysis and mathematical formulations to create specific purpose
models, whose greatest utility occur in complex, highly variable situations
where problem structuring becomes an issue.
Stages
The stages of a OR consultancy may involve:
·
an audit review of existing models and/or business decision processes.
·
development of a proposal for the construction and implementation of a
statistical / OR model.
·
application of the seven-step OR methodology to the proposed project.
·
design and delivery of custom workshops on the use of the model to
support business decision processes.
Model building
There are many
advantages in the use of models to support management decision processes. Properly implemented they can form part of
the organisation’s learning and documentation procedure, thus becoming a part of
the business knowledge and memory. .
Over time, conditions may change or deeper insights may be gained. A well designed model will be relatively
easy to modify in the light of additional knowledge.
How we
operate
NORCA Consulting can operate in either of two ways, as
determined by the client’s needs and circumstances.
1. A consulting assignment may be focussed on a specific project or
need, on a fee for service basis. While
this has elements of the role of a traditional management consultant, the added
value is greater because of our emphasis on staff mentoring and our follow up offer of a post implementation review.
2. We can operate under our unique External Part-time OR Manager (EPORM) concept where we provide a mentoring
service on a retainer basis over a period such as a year. This is a service expressly designed to
provide clients with all the benefits of an internal consultancy unit, but without the overheads.
Either way, the
following issues have been identified as crucial to our form of operation and
what we deliver:
·
practicality and viability of all
project deliverables
·
ownership of recommendations, systems
and alterations by all stakeholders
·
transfer of skills to client staff as
required to sustain the benefits
The People
NORCA Consulting is a body
of individuals with a broad range of expertise who hold
similar interests within
their wide variety of experiences:
· Dudley Foster has over 30 years experience in Operations Research
in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
This experience includes 18 years in industry, 6 years in academia and 8
years as a consultant. A lot of his
work is related to business improvement across the interface between
Manufacturing and Marketing. He is an
expert on financial modelling with a focus on the economic evaluation of
investment proposals and the design of generic financial models. He is a Senior Academic Associate with the
Graduate School of Business at Victoria University.
· Harry Gielewski has worked in OR / Statistics / Model Building for
over 30 years. He has worked on a large
variety of projects in Australia and Europe, as an internal and external
consultant in numerous business sectors, in government and in Academia. His main areas of interest are in
forecasting, TQM, Statistical Process Control, statistical analysis,
simulation, decision analysis, education, model building and the use of IT for
decision making. He maintains academic
links with RMIT, Victoria and Swinburne universities through lecturing and
consulting
· Howard Hinds has over 30 years experience as a marketer in the oil
industry and network property development business and is a committed user of
Operations Research services. Until
recently he was National Property Development Manager with 7-Eleven. Prior to this he ran his own property
consultancy business, Hindsite Pty. Ltd.
Earlier he held various management positions with Shell Australia, being
responsible for the control and development of retail outlets, distributor
depots and direct Shell sales. He held
the position of Chairman’s Representative in Tasmania and was Chairman of the
Tasmanian branch of the Australian Institute of Petroleum.
· Paul Lochert has over 35 years of teaching experience in the areas
of applied statistics and operations research with a focus on applications in
business, computing, engineering and social science. During this time, Paul has carried out a diverse range of
consulting assignments for both Government agencies and the private
sector. He is currently an Honorary
Associate of Monash University where he formerly held the position of Associate
Professor. He has also spent time
seconded to commercial organizations, including 6 months with Control Data
Australia as an internal consultant and 6 months with Shell Australia’s
Operations Research Department.
· Kaye E. Marion is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Statistics
and OR at RMIT, where she is responsible for programs in operations research,
econometrics, time series analysis, forecasting and simulation modelling. Following a period as an industrial chemist,
she gained extensive experience in applied statistics and market research at the
Gas & Fuel Corporation, BP Aust. Ltd. and BHP Co. Ltd. Since joining RMIT in 1973, her consulting
work has covered a wide range of industries and problem areas and she places
particular emphasis on the use of graphical techniques to identify relationships
and communicate analytical results.
Additional Support
Various levels of
additional expertise and support are available to NORCA to meet specific
management needs. First, NORCA has a
strong outer network of seasoned OR professionals with a wealth of business
experience in specific application areas. Where needed, resources can be
supplemented through our links with universities. These links include relationships with world class experts in
particular fields at universities in Australia and overseas.
This combination
of a strong core team, an outer network and university links gives NORCA an
unrivalled capacity to provide each client with a team, which really is the
best team for the job. This set-up
provides NORCA with a distinct advantage over larger organisations with a focus
on maximising the utilisation of permanent staff.
Services
and Products
Other
Details
still to be provided
External
Part-time OR Manager (EPORM)
The External
Part-time OR Manager concept is a unique service expressly designed to
enable you, the client, to maximise the short and long term value of your
expenditure on consulting services. The
aim is to capture all the benefits of an
internal consultancy without the overheads. To this end, the following issues have been identified as
crucial:
·
practicality and viability of all
project deliverables
·
ownership of recommendations, systems
and changes by all stakeholders
·
transfer of skills to client staff, as
required, to sustain the benefits
The core philosophy of the service is the focus on
skills transfer. This is of particular
value to companies which want to avoid the overhead of specialist internal
consultants, but wish, nevertheless, to build and sustain analytical and
business modelling skills within their business units. This is achieved by helping clients do
things better themselves, rather than doing things for the client.
How Does The EPORM Concept Work?
The usual method of implementing the concept is to set
up an agreement with a client to operate for a defined period (say a year) as
an External Part-time OR Manager,
with a focus on problem definition and mentorship of internal staff. For the duration of the contact:
·
the consultant would hold monthly
meetings with the client
·
there would be an agreed minimum
number of billable days (say 12)
·
there would be an agreed maximum
number of billable days (say 36)
·
most of the work would be done by
internal staff, but NORCA would provide QA of all project deliverables
·
no time would be charged by NORCA over
and above the agreed maximum number of consulting days, unless a separate
agreement was negotiated.
Client Benefits Of The EPORM
Concept
The EPORM arrangement is designed to
maximise both skills transfer and value the client obtains from his expenditure
on using consulting services. Other
advantages are client ownership of
recommendations made and/or systems developed; client access to an independent
expert outside the hierarchy of the
organisation; plus all the benefits which flow naturally from a long term
relationship. In particular, the
ongoing relationship reduces the client time spent briefing the consultant on
the background to tasks, which are important but don’t amount to more than a few
days work. Furthermore, these benefits
can be obtained without the overheads associated with an in-house specialist:
the minimum annual commitment is only
about 5% of the cost of employing a full time staff member with the requisite
qualifications and experience.
Post Implementation Reviews
We do not just
walk away at the end of an appointment or project. We provide a self-monitored quality assurance programme, by
returning, at an appropriate or agreed time after the completion of our
appointment, to review the results, the processes we used and to measure the
success of our skills transfer process to our client’s staff. In this way, we hope to stimulate continual
improvement in all modes of the service we deliver and to ensure an ongoing
benefit to our clients and their staff.
Staff Mentoring
An important point
of difference with our consultancy is the ‘staff mentoring’ plan. Depending on the reasons for our
appointment, we aim to transfer appropriate skills to the client staff with
whom we work and to provide them with an understanding of the operations
research methods and techniques we employ.
Sometimes this will be for a specific project where counselling may
continue well after a project is finished.
Other clients may enter into an ongoing arrangement, whereby we act as
mentors to staff to grow their skills and counsel them over a number of
projects. NORCA places particular emphasis on this mentoring
process and skills transfer to our clients’ staff.
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