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Leading with Analysis in the Age of
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Overview of @RISK 5.0 and DecisionTools Suite 5.0 Sam will give a guided tour of the stunning new DecisionTools Suite 5.0 for Microsoft Excel. The DecisionTools Suite has been rewritten and expanded, adding new products to provide the most comprehensive set of quantitative tools available anywhere. All component products offer streamlined interfaces, robust reporting, new features and tighter integration with Excel and each other. The result is a powerful, cohesive package that is more than the sum of its parts. The Suite incorporates flagship @RISK 5.0 for risk analysis using Monte Carlo simulation, and it also adds new versions of PrecisionTree and TopRank. PrecisionTree provides decision analysis with decision trees, while TopRank performs fast, convenient "what-if" sensitivity analysis. Furthermore, the data analysis software NeuralTools and StatTools have been added. NeuralTools performs predictive analysis using neural networks, while StatTools provides time-series forecasting and a wide range of other statistical functions. Rounding out the new Suite is Evolver 5.0, the genetic algorithm optimization tool. Sam will touch on the most important new aspects of the DecisionTools Suite products, and answer any questions you may have.
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Uncertainty and Demand Side Management: Tools, Techniques, and Lessons Learned from BC Hydro's Energy Planning Process Basil Stumborg Industry Focus: Energy BC Hydro is the provincial electric utility for British Columbia. With 2m customers and annual revenues of roughly $5b, BCH is Canada’s second biggest utility. With its current Long Term Energy Plan in front of its regulator, BC Hydro has embarked on a bold shift in its energy strategy– it intends over the next 20 years to meet almost 75% of its incremental load through energy conservation – one of the most aggressive targets in North America. As a public utility, BC Hydro must show prudence in its energy planning. The uncertainty analysis around the energy conservation goals has played a key role in its energy planning processes. This presentation will take a small piece of that work (Demand Side Management programs) to demonstrate applications and key lessons learned. The presentation will focus on some key aspects:
The techniques discussed and models used will be simple in format to allow ease of audience understanding and to allow a more open and conversational approach for the presentation. The emphasis will be split between:
While the analysis within the application is still in front of the regulator, early indications suggest that this simple addition of uncertainty analysis into BC Hydro’s energy planning processes has fundamentally shifted the approach taken to this task and has laid a path for all future work in this area.
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Dr. S. Chris Albright Industry Focus: ...
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Decision Theory and the Economic Feasability of Wave Energy Desalination Systems
Industry Focus: Environmental Consulting The need for fresh water resources has become a critical problem in the Western United States, especially among the coastal cities due to continuing population growth, where competition is fierce for surface water and groundwater. Recent work by various researchers indicate that global warming will reduce the Sierra snow pack, reducing spring runoff and causing disruption in the West’s water supply. Increasingly, coastal water agencies have begun to examine desalination as an option for additional water supplies. Desalination gives an additional source of water that is independent of the hydrological cycle. Unlike surface water and groundwater, seawater is readily available to the high population coastal cites, even during drought years, and new major pipelines, aqueducts, or reservoir systems would be unnecessary. However, using seawater to produce drinking water is not without serious obstacles: the exceptionally high energy consumption needed to produce the high pressure requirements for reverse osmosis (RO) is approximately half the total cost of the final fresh water product. Additional energy demand has a high incremental cost, as electrical supplies and transmission systems are already utilized near their limit. Some have proposed using alternative energy to supply the energy. Among the most promising of these technologies may be ocean produced waves, which can be used to pressurize a RO system without electrical service demand, in what is referred to as a Wave Energy Desalination System (WEDS). This work concentrates on the cost estimates of applying a WEDS to various locations along the California coast, from San Diego to San Francisco, and uses @Risk and PrecisionTree to determine the economic feasibility of the development of such a system. |
Using Statistical Modeling to Take the Dr. Jack Mason Industry Focus: ...
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| Applying Probabilistic Methods to Quantify Uncertainties in the Request for Proposal (RFP) Process
Liegh Hostetter and Poh Boon Ung Industry Focus: Project Management Large multi-million dollars projects are often put out to bid through a formal Request for Proposal (RFP) process. This is especially true for government related projects. Government agencies often bid out these projects but have to deal with significant amount of uncertainties in the bids that they receive. For example, capital projects require work over long durations totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars that include the need for specialized workers, equipment, and materials. Workers must utilize non-routine work hours that coincide with permits and related approvals. When putting a project out to bid, these agencies typically create their own internal cost estimates and phased schedule to determine an overall required project duration and assist in evaluating the bids received from contractors. The internal estimate and schedule is based on assumptions of productivity and availability from past projects. However, bidders create their own assumptions and contingencies when evaluating the RFP and generate their estimate of duration and cost to complete the project. Thus, the agency’s and bidders’ proposed costs are often materially different. This creates a dilemma for agencies which must now then make decisions as to the reasonableness of bidders’ estimates and on which general contractor to award the project. ARCADIS designed and have applied business processes and risk analysis models to facilitate the decision process that takes these project uncertainties and limitations into account. In particular, our model uses Palisades’ @RISK tools to create a correlated cost and schedule model. The model aims to estimate project costs from a bidder’s point of view in light of the required schedule durations, consequences of missing deadlines, and current business conditions. At the root of the base model is the agency’s underlying cost and schedule estimate. For each element, probability distributions based on expert judgment or statistical analysis of data are used to represent components including quantities, unit costs, wage rates, labor hours, durations, and activity lags. Relationships are created among schedule activities that utilize iterative formulas for activities requiring different workdays (six day week, seven day week and weekend work only). A key component of our process involves coordinating a facilitated meeting with various teams (e.g., agency design, scheduling, cost estimating and procurement) to identify project elements and risk events where the bidders might use different assumptions than the agency when generating a total project cost estimate. Examples of this are higher wage rates for limited availability of specialized labor, incorporating liquidated damages for missed deadlines that include elements out of their control, and incorporating overtime allowances for work to be completed within a short duration. Correlations among cost elements, schedule elements and between cost and schedule elements are created using @RISK correlation matrices. Our model estimates a reasonable range for total project cost to be used to evaluate bids and also identifies activities within the project schedule that are likely to be difficult to achieve within agency specified durations. The risk analysis results assist agencies in negotiations with bidders, such as guaranteeing additional needed permits, waving liquidated damages for some items or creating material escalation clauses. The model can also be modified to examine how changing the required project duration would impact contractor bids. Combining project team knowledge, current market conditions and chance events into a probabilistic framework can assist government agencies in making tradeoffs between cost and schedule and evaluating bidders’ estimates.
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| Modeling Building: Examples of Do’s & Don’ts
Dr. Terence Reilly Industry Focus: Academic What happens when you ask graduate students to apply their rudimentary understanding of simulation to complex real-world financial decisions? At the beginning of the semester, their applications are confused, haphazard, and incoherent, but by semester’s end, they have created sophisticated and wonderfully insightful models. This is similar to the evolution that many organizations go through as they begin using simulation and decision analysis models. To practitioners, it has become second hand to rigorously think about uncertainty and incorporate probability distributions in their analysis, but this skill does not come easily to the vast majority of people. We will discuss the typical pitfalls novice (and sometimes experienced) modelers fall into using examples from 10 years of teaching. |
| Feasibility Risk Assessment and Monte Carlo Simulation in Transport Infrastructure Projects
Kim Bang Salling Industry Focus: Transportation Project Management The presentation presents the final version of the CBA-DK decision support model for assessment of transport projects. The model is a product of my PhD study due August 2008 – conducted at the Department of Transport, Technical University of Denmark (DTU-Transport). The model makes use of conventional cost-benefit analysis resulting in aggregated single point estimates and quantitative risk analysis using Monte Carlo simulation resulting in interval results. Two special concerns in the presentation is the treatment of feasibility risk assessment adopted for evaluation of transport infrastructure projects and whether this can provide adequate decision support – namely by moving from a single point estimate to an interval result and the determination of suitable probability distributions as a consequence to the level of knowledge. The CBA-DK model is build in a Microsoft Excel platform in which the deterministic based calculations are performed. The stochastic calculations are based upon @RISK software in which adequate probability distributions have been applied specific transport infrastructure effects. Two major impacts as concerns appraisals in transport projects, construction costs and travel time savings are appraised through a large database comparing ex-ante based projects with ex-post. Herein, the best fit function of @RISK is applied to determine actual distribution fits to the past data sets. Finally, a case example is presented appraising the three different runway alternatives in the capital of Greenland, Nuuk. This case relies upon a large-scale transport assessment plan of the whole country in which DTU-Transport has been acted as consultants for the Greenlandic Home Rule authorities.
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| Advancing IT Capacity Planning Capabilities using Neural Networks Clark Lowery Industry Focus: Electronic financial management Traditional capacity planning approaches utilize historical data to trend and forecast future requirements, and many special software tools and procedural approaches are employed in the industry. But, relating business changes and outside influences to actual hardware requirements has always been a major challenge that is at the root of most capacity shortfalls. Utilizing the capabilities of the neural network tool within the DecisionTools suite can remove uncertainty from your IT forecasts. The resulting improvements in capital forecasts, service quality, and customer satisfaction can translate into dramatic improvements in your bottom line, while requiring a minimal investment. The learning ability of the networks you build can replace some of the need for statistical analysis specialists and reduce your dependence upon expensive high-end capacity planning software. This presentation shows in detail how transforming data collected by various in-house departments into a common collection of influence metrics allowed CheckFree Investment Services (CIS) to leverage NeuralTools to reduce IT costs and improve customer service by anticipating the current instability of the markets and the impact on our infrastructure. A second case study shows how NeuralTools served to convince a prospective client that CIS was best suited to provide support for their funds managers, leading to a major new contract. This innovative approach to expanding the role of traditional capacity planning that is evolving across the financial services industry can be introduced into your business, where a minor investment in materials and training will yield major benefits.
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| Evaluating Investment Gambles Using Simulation
Dr. Robert Ameo Industry Focus: Financial/Investing There are just so many histograms senior executives will look at before their eyes glaze over. For individuals who are used to making decisions on a handful of metrics from a point forecast (e.g., NPV, IRR), the data overload from a simulation forecast of an investment outcome can be both overwhelming and unwelcome. In his presentation, Dr. Ameo describes how to use the simple, straightforward language of wagering to effectively communicate the relative risks and opportunities presented by specific investments. The derivation of key gambling metrics from a Monte Carlo simulation of NPV – Chances of winning, value of winning, cost of a loss, and “the odds” will be presented along with the appropriate language and graphics to present and discuss the findings. Implications for portfolio planning and decision making will be discussed. |
| Risk Mitigation in Project Bidding
Dr. William J. McKibbin Industry Focus:
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| An Application of Simulation in
Software Reliability Prediction Vojo Bubevski Industry Focus: Information Technology The quantitative approach to Software Quality Management is a standard requirement for all software development projects compliant with Capability Maturity Model – CMM’s Level 4. Software Reliability is also one of the main aspects of Software Quality. Thus, achieving the software reliability goals is a major objective for software development organisations as it is a critical constraint on their projects. For example, the software will not be released to the customer for operation until the reliability goals have been achieved. Software Reliability is the probability of failure-free software operation for a specified time period. To predict the software system reliability at some point in the future, based on metrics data available now, is one of the software projects important challenges. The implicit objective of management is to achieve the software system reliability goals while minimising costs and schedule of projects. Therefore, prediction in this sense is very useful to support software project management in achieving this objective. This paper presents an approach of applying simulation in software reliability prediction using Palisade’s tools. Different simulation models are used in experiments to predict specific real software system reliability based on actual historical data. The simulation results are then compared with the actual data in order to evaluate and tune the models. The objective of the experiments is to select the most suitable model for this specific system. The selected model then can be used to support the management to achieve the reliability goals of the future releases of the system while minimising costs and schedule of the associated development project. The presented approach is generic and could be used for any software system development projects. |
| Measuring Risk in Advanced Development Projects
Jorge Pica Industry Focus: Aerospace/Radar At Lockheed Martin, measuring risk is crucial for any program’s execution. Within Research & Development, the problem compounds itself multiple fold. R&D projects are short term, technically complex and frequently involve multiple parties that can range from Universities to Small business. Understanding Risk and its impact to research and development execution well before it is realized is key to executing successful research and development. This presentation will focus on the use of @RISK for Project in the research and development environment. This presentation will also review how this risk tool it fits into the overall Design for Six Sigma/Lean Six Sigma focus within research and development activities within Lockheed Martin.
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Scott Randall Industry Focus: ...
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Simulation Forecast Model with @RISK
Industry Focus: ...
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Using @RISK to Model Flu Pandemics
Industry Focus: Public Health
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Industry Focus: ...
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The Potential Impact of Electric Vehicles on
Industry Focus: Energy/Market Forecasting Interest in electric vehicles is rising rapidly. All of the major domestic and foreign automakers have announced plans to begin to market some sort of electric vehicle. The implications could be enormous for the environment and the electric utility industry. A model that calculates the potential impact of plug in hybrid electric vehicles and pure electric vehicles on BC Hydro’s Load Forecast will be presented. Several market share scenarios will be discussed. Impact on electricity consumption and peak load will be calculated. Petroleum displacement will be discussed. The daily timing of electric vehicle demand will be included, as well as the interaction of electric vehicle load on the electric grid and capacity requirements. @RISK will be used throughout to quantify the extreme uncertainty in the timing and extent of the introduction of electric vehicles is well as the integration of their impact into BCHydro’s stochastic load forecast. |
A Refined Approach for Defining Construction Project Uncertainty
Industry Focus: Engineering/Construction Risk analysis is a term or concept that that has many different meanings to many different people. Often projects include some form of qualitative risk planning, brainstorming or mitigation but few do true quantitative risk analysis at the budgeting phase. Many experts concur that if you don’t do some sort of quantitative analysis, you’re not really doing risk analysis at all and in a lot of cases you may even be wasting your time. Using knowledge and training from the PMI, AACE and Palisade combined with solid experience as a project manager and senior engineer in the heavy industrial sector, Jason has developed a new approach which is being adopted by industrial companies and organizations such as the Canadian Department of National Defence. The process is used for doing project risk analysis for quantifying uncertainty on capital construction budgets. What is unique about the approach is a dual S-Curve concept used for quantifying Contingency separate from Risk Reserve on the project. The analysis also yields Schedule Contingency and incorporates concepts such as Escalation and Cash Flow modelling. The presentation will cover an overview of the process which includes concepts like Calibration Training and Risk Register Brainstorming as well as plans for future integration of other financial modeling concepts. For more information visit www.engcomp.ca.
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Cost Risk Analysis Using the Risk Drivers
Industry Focus: ...
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Staying Cool in the Mortgage Market Meltdown
Industry Focus: Finance/Banking/Real Estate
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Project Management Applications with DecisionTools Suite 5.0
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Real Options with DecisionTools Suite 5.0 This session introduces the topic of real options modelling as an extension of risk modelling. The link to general decision making under uncertainty and financial market options is also discussed. A variety of examples using @RISK and PrecisionTree is presented. |
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Oil and Gas Applications with
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Dr. Kimberly M. Thompson, Keynote Speaker
Associate Professor of Risk Analysis and Decision Science
Department of Health Policy and Management
Department of Society, Human Development, and Health
Professor Thompson's research interests and teaching focus on the issues related to developing and applying quantitative methods for risk assessment and risk management, and consideration of the public policy implications associated with including uncertainty and variability in risk characterization. Drawing on a diverse background, she seeks to effectively integrate technological, social, political, legal, and economic issues into risk analyses that inform public policy and improve decision making in what she calls the "Age of Risk Management."
She created and directs the Kids Risk Project, which aims to empower kids, parents, policy makers, and others to make better decisions when managing children's risks. This effort applies risk and decision analysis tools to highlight the value of informed decisions and it will ultimately lead to the development of appropriate risk models for children. This work builds on Professor Thompson’s long-standing interest in the issues related to variability in risk for sensitive sub-populations, particularly children, and the potential risk tradeoffs associated with policies designed to protect them. The work includes research on a range of children's risks including injury, environmental, medical, and product-related risks, as well as perception of children's risks and the portrayal of risky behaviors in popular entertainment media. In January 2003, Professor Thompson co-founded the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston. At the first Kids Risk Symposium, Dr. Thompson released the first study of the Fortune 1000 companies aimed at assessing their commitments to children.
Professor Thompson continues to explore the implications of using different analytical tools for structuring information, a theme that is central to her teaching. She directs Probabilistic Risk Analysis: Assessment, Management, and Communication (http://www.pracourse.harvard.edu ), a Professional Education course that meets each fall at the Harvard School of Public Health. As the use of quantitative analysis continues to grow, Professor Thompson looks at how the type of analysis used (e.g., cost-effectiveness analysis, cost-benefit analysis, decision analysis, value-of-information analysis, risk-only or health-only analysis, etc.) influences and determines the policy outcome. Professor Thompson's work currently focuses heavily on system dynamics and dynamic modeling, particularly in the context of modeling policies for polio risk management after the success of global eradication.
Building on her broad training, Professor Thompson also focuses on the characterization of information and communication of risks. She developed a guide to help consumers take charge of health information that appears in her book called Risk in Perspective: Insight and Humor in the Age of Risk Management. She uses this book as a text in her course ID285: Environmental Health Risk: Concepts and Cases, which she offers in the HSPH Wintersession. Recognized as a Society for Risk Analysis/Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer and popular keynote speaker, she speaks widely about life in the Age of Risk Management.
Professor Thompson continues to develop her interests in improving risk communication to help consumers and organizations manage their risks.
Dr. S. Chris Albright
Professor of Operations & Decision Technologies
Kelly School of Business
Indiana University
Dr. Albright’s professional interests and expertise are in Spreadsheet Modeling for Optimization, Statistical Analysis and Simulation, Developing Excel Add-ins for Statistics, Statistics for Research, Stochastic Models in Management Science, Quantitative Methods for MBA Core, Web Page Development and Database Access with .NET, Data Mining, and VBA for Excel. He is the author and co-author of many books, including VBA for Modelers; Data Analysis and Decision Making, (with Wayne Winston and Christopher Zappe) ; and Practical Management Science (with Wayne Winston). Also, Dr. Albright developed the statistical add-in StatsPro for Excel, later developed as StatTools by Palisade Corp.
Dr. Robert Ameo
Market Modelers, LLC
During his tenure with Johnson & Johnson, Dr. Ameo developed an expertise in forecasting adoption of new medical technologies and market share for a wide range of medical device, and biopharmaceutical products. He worked with business development, R&D and marketing in evaluating investment opportunities. Currently, he is an independent consultant specializing in valuing future revenue and cash flow streams for strategic planning, project prioritization, and investment decisions.
Bob designs and executes simulation forecasts and the associated market research to power key adoption and share assumptions. Using metrics such as the probability of value creation and return on money at risk (ROMR), he helps organizations understand and maximize the ‘odds’ of winning when making bets on risky investments.
Ed Biernat
President
Consulting With Impact, Ltd
Edward Biernat is the president of Consulting With Impact, Ltd., a training, coaching, and consultancy located in Canandaigua, NY that he founded in 1998. CWI’s client list includes companies ranging from the Fortune 100 to post-startups in the medical device, food and food packaging, steel, automotive, healthcare, and service sectors. He is a graduate of Clarkson University with bachelor degrees in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, and has held positions in engineering, quality, and management at several New York companies. He is the author of numerous training programs and articles, and has presented at national and international events including the Institute of Industrial Engineers’ Annual Conference and the European Organization for Quality in Brussels, Belgium. Ed also developed part of the curriculum for and presents at the Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification course at a local college.
Vojo Bubevski
Senior Systems Analyst/Designer, Legal & General Accounts
TATA Consultancy Services Ltd.
Vojo Bubevski comes from Macedonia. He graduated from the University of Zagreb, Croatia in 1977, receiving a degree in Electrical Engineering - Computer Science. He started his professional career in 1978 as Analyst Programmer in Alkaloid Pharmaceuticals, Skopje, Macedonia. At Alkaloid, he worked on applying Operations Research methods to solve commercial and pharmaceutical technology problems from 1982 to 1986.
In 1987 Vojo immigrated to Australia. He worked for IBM Australia from 1988 to 1997. The first five years at IBM he worked in IBM Australia Programming Center developing systems software. The rest of his IBM career was spent working in IBM’s Core Banking Solution Centre.
In 1997, he immigrated in the United Kingdom where started his IT consulting career. As IT consultant, Vojo has worked for Lloyds TSB Bank in London, Svenska Handelsbanken in Stockholm, and Legal & General Insurance in London.
In June 2008, he joined TATA Consultancy Services Ltd where he’s currently a Senior Software Systems Analyst/Designer.
Dr. Brendan P. Dooher
Senior Associate
LFR Inc
Dr. Brendan Dooher is a LFR Senior Associate and a junior Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering, part of the National Academy of Sciences. He specializes in risk and decision analysis using statistical assessments of environmental, water resources, and energy data combined with analytical and numerical modeling. He has over ten years of experience working in these fields, and has extensive knowledge of the State of California’s regulatory and business environment. Dr. Dooher has worked on major technical and policy issues addressing environmental impacts from contaminants, water resource usage, energy systems, engineering solutions to carbon dioxide emissions, carbon sequestration, and requirements for a transition to a hydrogen economy. Dr. Dooher received his PhD in the field of Mechanical Engineering, with a specialization in Systems Analysis and Environmental Risk Assessment, and a minor in Numerical Analysis. Statistical analysis of a statewide leaking underground fuel tank (LUFT) environmental database formed the basis for his dissertation research. He was part of the LLNL team that pointed out the danger to California groundwater from the gasoline additive MTBE, and he continues to assess it on an economic and environmental basis.
Keith Hornbacher
Hulett & Associates, LLC
Leigh A. Hostetter
Senior Economist
ARCADIS
Leigh Hostetter specializes in high level data analysis and modeling techniques. She worked in environmental economic consulting for three years, and spent a year as an Equity Advisor on Wall Street before taking her current position. Leigh’s professional experience includes membership with the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE), presenting research at AERE’s 2004 Camp Resources, and publishing a paper with the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA). She received a B.A. in Economics from Skidmore College in 2002 with highest honors, and was the recipient of the 2002 Weiss Prize for achievement in economic research.
Dr. David T. Hulett
Hulett & Associates, LLC
Michael A. Kubica, MBA, MS
Sr. Scientist, Econometric Modeling
Applied Quantitative Sciences, Inc.
Michael has over 15 years experience in the healthcare industry and in use of quantitative modeling to facilitate decision-making under uncertainty. Michael manages the econometric modeling functions at Healthcare Econometrics, LLC and is an expert in the specification of simulation models, econometric forecasting and optimization. Michael's services have been utilized by some of the most successful healthcare organizations in the medical device, pharmaceutical and managed care industries. Michael has also worked with public sector healthcare organizations, such as Medicaid. Michael is Adjunct Professor of Research Design and Statistical Analysis at the St. Thomas University School of Business in Miami, FL.
Clark Lowery
Director, Capacity and Performance Engineering
CheckFree Investment Services
With degrees in accounting/finance, computer science, and funds management, Mr. Lowery has spent 25 years in private industry after military time with the 101st Airborne.
For 15 years, he provided consulting expertise to the nuclear industry for operations and maintenance systems and processes, and then moved into the financial services industry in a succession of IT roles.
Most recently Mr. Lowery has built an IT engineering division for CheckFree Electronic Commerce, and then taken on the same role for Investment Services (after a Fiserv/CheckFree merger). In this role he acquired extensive experience with many facets of IT operations and management, and became recognized as a leader in the field of IT performance management.
Mr. Lowery serves as the IT liaison to Fiserv’s largest funds management clients and frequently presents technical solutions to client challenges as part of an ongoing client relationship-management program.
Frank McGowan
Senior Economist
Market Forecasting
British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority (BC Hydro)
Frank S. McGowan is a Senior Economist with BC Hydro. He has a MS in Mathematics form New York University (Courant Institute) and a MA in Economics from the University of Alberta. He has taught mathematics at NYU, SUNY and Hofrtra University. At present he is working on stochastic forecasting models for load forecasting and for price forecasting. His experience includes work in applied mathematics and econometrics in a variety of industries including aerospace, medical research, telecommunications and electric power.
Dr. William J McKibbin
Consultant to Management
McKibbinUSA, LLC
Dr William J McKibbin is a consultant to management specializing in strategic and operational planning, business modeling, risk analysis, financial engineering, systems integration, process design, project management, due diligence, turnarounds, executive coaching, and team leadership. Dr McKibbin's client list includes names such as Intel, Oracle, Chevron, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Pfeizer, Guggenheim Capital, and others. Dr McKibbin has been in professional practice serving companies, boards, and executives in various capacities as consultant, director, and interim management since 1998.
Sam McLafferty
President and CEO
Palisade Corporation
Sam McLafferty is Palisade's founder, president, and CEO. He started the company in 1984 with the release of PRISM, a stand-alone Monte Carlo simulation package for DOS on the PC. PRISM later evolved into @RISK for Lotus 1-2-3, and then for Excel. Sam is Palisade's lead developer, with over thirty years of programming experience. He works closely with the technical and sales staff, ensuring that customer feedback is heard. He personally oversees the development and evolution of every one of the fifteen software products Palisade sells. Prior to Palisade, he was a risk analysis consultant.
Jason L.G. Mewis, P.Eng.
President
ENGCOMP Engineering & Computing Professionals Inc.
As the founder and president of ENGCOMP, Jason has over 12 years of experience working on projects for the heavy industrial market in Saskatchewan, as both a Senior Structural Engineer and Project Manager. Over the course of the last seven years, Jason has concentrated his efforts on front-end project planning and risk analysis.
Jason is a registered professional engineer with permission to consult in Saskatchewan, Alberta & British Columbia for industrial, commercial, and residential projects. He is experienced in many areas including project management, estimating, planning, and structural engineering. What distinguishes him is his specialized training in risk analysis and computer programming. Combining this experience with a strong problem-solving background and project execution track record gives Jason a unique skill set that is invaluable to ENGCOMP’s clients on many fronts.
Dr. Roy Nersesian
Professor, School of Business
Monmouth University
B.S. Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute followed by 8 years in the U.S. Navy with last position as Chief Engineer on a Polaris submarine. Graduated from Harvard Business School with a MBA and worked for a shipping company, a bank in shipping finance, and a consultant for a ship brokerage firm, and finally a professor at the School of Business, Monmouth University. He has written several books, one of which is Corporate Financial Risk Management published by Praeger Press, 2004 from which the presentation is drawn. His most recent book is Energy in the 21st Century published by M. E. Sharpe. He is also associated with the Center of Energy and Marine Transportation at Columbia University where @RISK simulation is an integral part of his course in quantitative analysis.
Dr. Javier Ordóñez
Training Consultant
Palisade Corporation
Advanced Programs Radar Systems, Lockheed Martin
Javier Ordóñez holds a BS in Civil Engineering from the Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador and a M.S. in Project Management from the University of Maryland. Javier earned his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland performing research on project risk analysis; his current research deals with cost and schedule integration and correlation issues through the use of Bayesian belief networks.
His experience is in the area of construction and project management, optimal project and capital investments selection, earned value management, engineering and project risk analysis and operations research applications to engineering and management problems.
He has taught as an adjunct professor in the Project Management Program at University of Maryland, and provides training in risk and decision analysis. He is also registered as a Project Management Professional (PMP).
Jorge Pica
Operations Deputy Manager, Electronic Ssytems - LSS Black Belt
Lockheed Martin
Jorge Pica currently serves as the Deputy Program Manager for Weather Radar Programs - Advanced Programs Radar Systems. He is a certified LSS Black Belt and has several years experience implementing DFSS techniques/tools on several Missile Defense Programs within Lockheed Martin. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University and Lockheed Martin’s Leadership Development Program.
Scott Randall
Lloyd's Register North America
Dr. Terence Reilly
Associate Professor
Babson College
Since coming to Babson College, Dr. Reilly has focused much of his attention on how best to educate his students. He has spearheaded curriculum changes in the graduate and undergraduate management science classes. He has been awarded a grant to implement cooperative learning in the classroom and was an invited speaker at the Teaching of Management Science Conference, University of Indiana, 2000. Dr. Reilly has also developed a distance learning course in decision analysis with the Babson/Intel MBA program.
Dr. Reilly's research interests include decision analysis, sensitivity analysis, copulas (multivariate distributions), and applied statistics. Other areas of expertise are in decision and risk analysis and simulations models. He has been published in Management Science, Decision Sciences, Structural Equation Modeling, and Sociological Methods and Research. He is also co-author with Bob Clemen of Making Hard Decisions with DecisionTools.
Kim Bang Salling
Associate Professor, Department of Transport
Technical University of Denmark
Kim Ban Salling is currently a Ph.D. Student at the Decision Modelling Group – Department of Transport at the Technical University of Denmark. He holds a Master’s degree in Engineering within socio-economic evaluation methodologies and decision support systems with special emphasis on cost-benefit analysis and Risk Analysis. The Ph.D. study is entitled: Assessment of Transport Projects: Risk Analysis and Decision Support. The main purpose of his Ph.D. project has been to develop an informed decision support model in assessing transport projects. By use of the CBA-DK software a new risk-oriented methodology for feasibility risk assessment is developed. Recently, he has been a part of the CLG project and co-developed a new Decision Support System - CLG-DSS applied for large scale infrastructure projects, under the CLG task 9 project. He has also been working on a programme for a composite evaluation model called COSIMA-VEJ for the Danish Road Directory -VD. Furthermore, he has been involved in a large transport appraisal study in Greenland evaluating the overall transport system -TGB. Currently, he works on customizing the CBA-DK model to the Rail Net Denmark in use for Asset Management and Project ranking.
Basil Stumborg
Senior Business Strategy Advisor, Finance Group
BC Hydro and Power Corporation, Canada
The mandate of the Finance Group is to support better decision making across the company. This means both introducing, teaching, and carrying out structured decision making processes as well as supporting best practice around risk analysis and communication.
I’m just completing the decision analysis / risk assessment for BC Hydro’s Long Term Acquisition Plan for meeting the Province’s energy needs. This work is included the introduction of a Risk Framework to help characterize the uncertainty around the supply and demand side options as well as to capture the key uncertainties on the planning horizon such as GHG offset costs, demand growth, natural gas prices etc.
My other current role is to set up and promulgate Triple Bottom Line decision-making across the company. This structured decision making approach incorporates tools from decision analysis and risk analysis in a way that allows multiple objective tradeoffs to be done rigorously and transparently.
I’ve done graduate work in Economics (MSc and beyond) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where my interest was in choice under uncertainty and the valuation of non-market goods. I also have my MA in economics from McGill University.
Thompson Terry
Training Consultant
Palisade Corporation
Thompson Terry is a dedicated member of Palisade’s training and consulting staff. With ten years of experience at Palisade, including eight in technical support, he is recognized as an expert in all Palisade software products and their applications.
Thompson has led numerous regional training seminars on risk and decision analysis and provided customized onsite training in a variety of industries including insurance, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, defense, and food safety. Clients Thompson has trained include: The Hartford, Unilever, Duratek, Eastman Chemical, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, National Rail (UK), RWE Thames Water (UK), National Gas Company of Trinidad & Tobago, Stone & Webster, and Northrop-Grumman.
Thompson is also on the board of directors of a local credit union’s not-for-profit, community development investment fund. He holds a BS in Agricultural Economics from Cornell University with specializations in economics, marketing, and finance.
Poh Boon Ung
Principal Economist
ARCADIS
Mr. Ung is a Senior Economist with Triangle Economic Research. In addition to developing quantitative decision models and statistical models, Mr. Ung manages projects related to water and air regulatory programs. He has prepared cost-benefit assessments for different environmental regulations involving power generating stations, off-road engines, and other environmental impacts from air emissions. He is also experienced in conducting natural resource damage assessments (NRDAs) and has been involved in various assessments throughout the United States. Mr. Ung holds an M.A. in Economics from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in Economics and Mathematics from Brandeis University, summa cum laude, where he is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Erik Westwig
Software Engineer
Palisade Corporation
Erik Westwig receivedhis B.Sc. in 1991 and M.Sc. in 1994from the applied and engineering physics department at Cornell University. In 1998 he published the book, Mathematical Physics with co-author Bruce Kusse, which was just re-released in its second edition. Since 1995 Eric has worked as a software engineer at Palisade aspart of the DecisionTools Suite development team.
Henry Yennie
State of Louisiana Department of Mental Health and Hospitals
