A Company Resume for InConcept

Areas of Focus

• Object-oriented data and systems analysis and object-based design
• Data architectures using multi-tier physical architecture and application development layers
• Data warehouse architectures for diverse legacy systems integration
  metadata management and its role in data warehouse and application development
• Training and consulting on the use of object-role modeling
• Process-event (dynamic model) techniques
• Process/workflow analysis
• Project management: Transitioning the project team from analysis and design to implementation and construction
• Communications with business and technical professionals
• Data warehouse analysis, design, construction, and deployment  for diverse legacy systems integration
• Decision support systems analysis, design and construction
• Conceptual data modeling; logical and physical data modeling
• Documentation planning and implementation
• Data modeling and synchronizing the data model with a process/event model to deliver the conceptual and logical rows in the Zachman framework. Emphasis is on the data, process, event, people, and roles columns to provide a technology independent definition of the system.
• Using selected methodologies to gather the business requirements of an enterprise so that it can be used as criteria for evaluating and selecting software providers. 
• Using data warehouse/data mart approaches that provide a consistent semantic model within the data warehouse system.
• Integrating conceptual modeling analysis techniques into object-oriented projects in order to provide validated analysis artifacts.

Relevant Project Experience

• Process/workflow analysis models using the dynamic modeling technique
• Integration of large data models (over 200 tables) of multiple major data bases with the process event models
• Interview sessions and documentation of process-event driven functions
• Requirements analysis for re-engineering of existing systems employing ORM (object role modeling) and a dynamic modeling technique to capture the requirements
• Client/server analysis and design with proven deliver and deployment of quality client/server solutions
• Establishing infrastructure for implementation of object-oriented system analysis and object-based design
• Strategic data warehouse architecture planning encompassing 7 different legacy systems
• Project Management
• Documenting a methodology in implementing object-oriented systems analysis and object-based design
• Authoring a strategic white paper recommending a Repository for resource management in an object-oriented environment
• Developing a CASE tool checklist for use in object-oriented system analysis and design; and researching of CASE tools to capture object-oriented analysis models
• Consulting services on the use of a client/server based repository in the area of data resource management, and CASE tool integration
• Managing the development of an analysis CASE tool
• Enterprise data architect and modeler for a $2 Billion company engaged in an enterprise wide data warehouse program
• Senior consultant and data warehouse practice leader at "big 6" firm
• Global data architect for an enterprise wide data warehouse engagement
• Technical project manager/leader
• Data warehouse/DSS data analysis and design (logical to physical)
• Data warehouse/DSS data extraction, refinement (cleanup/scrub), loading and access for DSS reporting and analysis
• Certified trainer and consultant on object-role modeling (ORM)
• Selection of development environment including GUI and CASE tools
• Guest lecturer at the University of Minnesota
• Facilitated requirements gathering and database design of the architectural components needed to support the delivery of Data Warehouses/Data Marts
• Gathering of business requirements to map the entire enterprise in order to objectively select a vendor(s) to provide a well integrated suite of applications.
• Total solution, database, web pages and reporting.

Project Engagements

Guidant

InConcept assessed a tactical data warehouse in Guidant for their Reliability Analysis Detection and Response System (RADAR). The results of the 10-day assessment were presented to the RADAR team and management.  As a result of the assessment, Guidant contracted with InConcept to provide assistance in enhancing the RADAR architecture to provide a set of ‘formal’ reports that had strict performance requirements.  InConcept was assigned the role of principal Business Analyst and Data Architect in the re-engineering of the data warehouse system for RADAR.  InConcept performed intensive business analysis using Object Role Modeling (ORM) in defining and understanding the user’s reporting and query requirements,  developed meta data definitions, defined a traceability matrix, and wrote design specifications for generating reports using Oracle Discover.  InConcept defined the de-normalized table structures to improve performance and retrieval for these ‘formal’ reports which were implemented as data marts and aggregations derived from the existing RADAR data warehouse environment.  ORM was employed to acquire and fill in the documentation that was missing from the original project and to also confirm, validate, and enhance the existing architecture.  The ORM results from the above effort served as a starting point for a re-engineered Ad-Hoc environment for RADAR.  The existing Ad-hoc environment had limited functionality and required a substantial increase in scope to deliver the required needs.  ORM was employed again to interview and document the additional requirements, document data sources, and validate the conceptual model with the Guidant business users.  The results of the effort were used to recommend options, their implementation, and a project timeline.

Meyer and Njus - P.A.

Analysis of their current business processes and data involving debt collection.  Used the analysis to search for commercial off the shelf systems that come the closest to satisfying the business requirements.  This provided a detailed list of gaps for prospective software vendors.  The firm used this gap analysis to select a vendor for their business needs. The analysis also assisted the firm's deeper understanding of their business and workflow.

Area Learning Center - St. Paul Public Schools

This project replaces the current school management application and also provides an integration with the St. Paul District's School administration system.  The integrated system provides all the different Area Learning Schools with improved administrative reporting, real-time student tracking using student ids and bar-coding all via web based data submittal processes. Students are tracked at the school entrance for attendance and tracked within each classroom. It is possible to determine who is in the school and who is is or is not in class throughout the day  Most of the daily paper-work in the front office, the counselor's offices and teachers issuing credits is all achieved on the system. Credit may be awarded on the date and time earned bypassing the wait until the end-of-month. Student adn teacher scheduling includes both fixed time and open time capabilities. Flexible generation of reports by integrating the application with Microsoft Office suite, thus, enabling the use of Excel, MS Word and MS Outlook. The application SQL Server based and uses Visual Studio .Net for an all ASP interface.

City of Minneapolis

Design and document the Data Management Architecture for a highly disparate data system including GIS (spatial data) features for the city. Selection of Business Analyst and Data Modeling development environments. Selection of Application Integration Strategy (EAI) and product selection. Remodeling the Data Warehouse into an Operational Data Store for reporting and analytical processing.

Andersen Windows

Assigned the role and responsibility of data architect, business analyst, and project lead in charge of modeling the following business functional areas: AW.COM, Home Depot Product Tracking, and AW Product Service.COM. AW.COM involves re-engineering of the current web-based system. The project entails a consolidated and integrated repository of text data and 'raw single attribute' data. The integrated data repository feeds multiple applications like the AW.COM, Home Depot Product Tracking, and AW Product Service.COM. Delivered ORM classes to the Data Resource Group in charge of Data Administration and Data Base Administration. Trained and mentored an AW Data Architect personnel having him involved in all facets of the modeling and design phases.

BuildNet

BuildNet is a company formed by a consortium of corporations involved in the home building industry. Company is located in North Carolina. Hired as a data architect consultant. Objective was to develop a generic building material parts repository that would eventually be used to generate catalog for retailers, distributors, contractors, and builders.

RETEK

RETEK is a provider of business-to-business processing. This e-commerce application suite requires a support database in ORACLE 8i. The database is multi-lingual and temporal. It is possible to have past, present and future information on-line at the same time. The system includes modeling patterns for these issues at an appropriate level of abstraction to keep key structures stable. A hierarchy management component was included to keep data prepared for feeding data marts or warehouses. The database supports reference data belong to RETEK and other enterprises or standards groups. This first database provides the common information for several other current and future applications.

Deluxe Corporation

For the debit bureau, eFunds group, assigned the role and responsibility of business analyst, data architect, and project lead in developing a consumer relations data mart to support customer relations support in handling consumer questions about their debit consumer reports.Assigned the role and responsibility of data architect, business analyst, and project lead in developing an inquiry posting data mart. The inquiry posting data mart provides product management and consumer relations management metrics on trading partners that submit debit and credit inquiries on consumers.For the MarketWise business group, assigned the role and responsibility of data architect in charge of modeling the as-is version of the MarketWise financial decision data base. Re-architected and expanded the models to include additional strategic business service offerings.Analysis and design of an ODS for the collection of debit, credit, account, and other information about a consumer, such as name, occupation, and address. This information is used by a number of processes and datamarts that rely on the ODS for the most recent information.Design of an Administrative Directory that contains profile information about trading partners with a business, target business units doing business with a trading partner, versions of products offered by a business unit, release statuses of the products, staff for support, access to product subscriptions, features of products, and other aspects of the trading relationship.

Imation - Data Warehouse

For the corporate data warehouse group assigned the role and responsibility of enterprise wide data architect in charge of integrating data models for different operational data stores. These data models consist of replacing customer support technologies DSS, replacement for Import/Export OLTP and DSS, sales and marketing DSS, integrated customer DSS, customer first DSS, customer logistics DSS, and customer complaint tracking system.Developed a highly flexible model for maintaining hierarchy structures in support of the changing business environment. The model supports changes to any hierarchy structures such as organization, territory, product, and customer.Project lead for their customer support decision system that tracks the servicing of products.

Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing (3M)

Currently working with the Corporate Toxicology Group. Assigned the role and responsibility of data architect, business analyst, and project manager. The project involves two areas. First, is the conversion and migration of data of the current system into Documentum - a document management system. Second, is the development of a system that will capture both textual and 'raw single attribute' data, thereafter generating documents involved in all phases of the chemical assessment. The documents are auditable and must conform to EPA and FDA accepted 'Good Laboratory Practices' guidelines and policies.

For the corporate product responsibility (CPR) group, in charge of maintaining material safety data sheets (MSDS) and other government regulated chemical products, conducted several sessions and documented the process-event driven functions for four major documents generated by the CPR Group. These documents are the material safety data sheet (MSDS), label document, material in transit (MITS) document and raw material document. In addition, synchronized the integrated data model (215 Tables) of four major data bases with the process event models. Assisted in the generation of a 3M IT compliant Phase 1 requirement analysis document. This project is targeted for implementation in a 3 tier client/server environment using Informix Universal Server and PowerBuilder. Wrote a special bridge to the current BasisPlus environment from the WATCOM PowerBuilder for testing the models.

Replace a legacy interface written in COBOL with an XML driven interface using a Java framework. The XML defines the characteristics of the interface as a metadata document that is used by a Java application that uses an Interfaces framework written in Java to process the interface. SQL is embedded in the XML as a tagged element for database access. The re-engineered interface replaces an interface that sends environmental, health, and safety information to workstations located throughout the world.

Project Lead for a rewrite of an environmental health management information system. Performed the data modeling, workshop interviews, setup workshop plans, event/process modeling, preparing executive summaries for project reviews, and estimation of time/cost for subsequent phases.

Project lead and designed the data model for a worldwide system enabling data in material safety data sheets to be distributed to many PC workstations in Europe, Scandinavia and Australia; and translated into several languages and local formats.

Designed and developed a CD-ROM application for material safety data sheets.

Designed and customized a chemical information system.

Installed energy management systems for customers, tailoring the DBMS and surrounding software to customer specials; teaching users to maintain the system and modify it to meet future needs.

Converted and customized an order administration system to an IBM/MVS system.

Designed the data models for a contract management database.

Project manager for the transition of many marketing groups to a new operating system.

Supported a forecast/speculation system in an order entry system.

Programmed and supported a finished goods inventory system.

State of Minnesota

For the State of Minnesota Peace Officer Standards and Training Agency, conducted and documented the requirements analysis involving the re-engineering of its current system to manage legislative mandates involving licensing of peace officers. Employed ORM (Object Role Modeling) and performed an object-oriented analysis and design to capture the requirements. As it enters the design and implementation phases, are assigned to project manage and lead. This project was implemented in a 3 tier hardware architecture, in an object based 4 layer application development: (1) GUI using Oracle 2000, (2) application layer using Oracle 2000, (3) RDBMS using Oracle 7, and (4) external system interfaces using OLE to interface with the MS Office suite.

Damark's International Inc.

Performed a process/workflow analysis of the company's customer service management using an object-oriented analysis (dynamic model) technique. The results of this analysis were used to enhance existing applications and to define user requirements for new applications.

Aetna Insurance

Developed, together with an author and practitioner of the data warehouse, a strategic data warehouse architecture plan encompassing 7 different legacy systems.

Torin Manufacturing Inc.

For this small manufacturing company that specializes in medical and specialty screws, performed a requirements analysis on their inventory and production control process using object-role modeling. The company used the requirements analysis document as the baseline to solicit off-the-shelf packages that would meet their production environment.

GFI, Inc.

For this medium sized meat processing firm, performed a data modeling using the object-role modeling technique on the entire meat processing operations: from slaughter of the cows to finished meat processing. The system was implemented in a 3 tier hardware architecture using UNIX platform, desktop PC and bar code readers, MS Access for reporting and Sybase as the RDBMS.

St. Paul Companies

Performed an analysis and design of four different projects covering the company's major types of insurance billing practices. Depending on the project type, a) implementation was done on two tier architecture using DB2, PowerBuilder and CICS calls, b) MS Access as a front end with external system interfaces to the mainframe.

Pillsbury Corporation

Performed an analysis and design of a decision support system focusing on advertising and sales promotion planning and forecasting; implemented in an object-based environment using PowerBuilder and Oracle. Project manager leading the project team in transitioning from analysis and design to implementation and construction which included external interfaces using the Lotus e-mail system.

Performed as a technical project leader in inventory tracking, pricing, security. C programming in UNIX and PC for a file transfer system between various platforms. Installation of ORACLE on HP-UX, support of an ORACLE development environment. Selection of development environment including GUI and Case Tools.

Honeywell Home and Building Controls

Performed an analysis and design on a product quality tracking system, that was implemented in an object-based environment using Visual Basic with an external system interface to MS Office suite.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield

Worked as a member of a team to establish an infrastructure for implementing object-oriented systems analysis and object-based design. The worked involved: developing PowerBuilder standards and Oracle design standards; implementing PVCS as a class library management application; authoring a strategic white paper recommending a repository for resource management in an object-oriented environment; developing a CASE tool checklist for use in object-oriented system analysis and design; and researching of ADW as a CASE tool to capture object-oriented analysis models.

InfoSpan Corporation

For this developer of information resources management systems firm, delivered consulting services on the use of a client/server based repository in the area of data resource management, and CASE tool integration. This involved the development of meta data models. Also assumed the responsibility of a product manager.

Control Data Corporation, Control Data Systems Inc.

For this computer manufacturing firm -- as a product manager -- managed UNIX and networked-based storage management software and hardware product lines capable of automatic backup, archive, and restoration of data files (TCP/IP, Novell Netware, LAN, FDDI and HIPPI).

Managed seven highly technical consultants responsible in delivering information and knowledge engineering to the firm's customers. Also managed seven additional technical consultants responsible for delivering consulting services on Oracle, IMF and BASISplus. Further, managed the development of an analysis CASE Tool that supports the binary object-ole modeling concepts better known as NIAM. Assumed various technical responsibilities from programmer, programmer analyst, project leader and department manager in support of marketing, data services and professional services business functions.

For a business support function, the technical project manager of several highly visible projects; and was responsible for delivering information and knowledge engineering to CDC and it's customers. Also used NIAM/ORM in the development of systems, with or without database back-ends. Databases developed included IMF and BASISplus.

As a technical leader for systems analysis and development, led a re-engineering team consisting of four programmers that re-engineered Cybernet's billing and invoicing system. This effort used the NIAM approach in data modeling (object-role modeling). The team implemented the system, using a database management system architected in a 3-schema architecture.

Also performed data modeling on a computer sales system using the concept of NIAM. This involved sales commissions for sales and on-going charges. This system was implemented by using a combination of hierarchical DBMS and a semi-relational DBMS.

Trained consultants on the usage of NIAM.

Cutler Group LP - Trading System

For a system to support high-speed transaction analysis for immediate daytime trading. This system is part of an application to track daily activity and trader parameters for making faster and better-informed decision on the trading floor. Also includes reconciliation system for daily trades against the clearinghouse daily data. The introduction of new reporting systems for the traders includes the ability to view the database using MS Office tools to reduce the need for custom programming.

G&K Services - Plant Systems

For the replacement of older systems within the processing plants. The task involved automated sensors and barcode readings taken from the plant floor, movement of product from customer, route scheduling, and interfaces back to the billing systems. Improved internal reporting and improved reporting and graphing data back to customers. Also included an on-line order system which required a product master with pricing, cost and product options.

US Navy - Data Warehouse

For the Naval Air and Sea Weapons Procurement Systems department, assigned the role of team lead for the financial, payment, vendor and procurement performance and open requisitions portion of the data warehouse. This involved ORACLE 8 and Oracle Designer. Developed documentation plan using VISIO and Microsoft products that interconnected the data designs, documents and drawing into an interlinking system. Assigned as an advisor to the project leader on issues of design and documentation. The assignment-included presentations on database design to the Navy and visitors.

SAI - Mental Health Research

Consultant developing the conceptual, logical and physical databases necessary to support the monthly data gathering, and reporting the interpretation of that data for administrators and medical personal involved in patient care. Database included: loading external data, staging for data clean matching and cleaning from various sources, operational, highly normalized for research and DSS for decision support and reporting. The project was in SQL Server and it was necessary to train other staff members and provided SQL support. Author of C .dll files callable from SQL Server. Also acted as Database Administrator.

Asymetrix

Certified trainer and consultant on object-role modeling (ORM). Teaching courses at Asymetrix, Boston, New York, Atlanta and in the Twin Cities area. Authored parts of the Asymetrix training course on InfoModeler and object-role modeling. Co-authored articles published in popular professional magazine on ORM. 

Computer Network Technologies (CNT)

Facilitated the gathering of business requirements for this network hardware manufacturer in order to map their entire enterprise so that they may objectively select a vendor(s) to provide a well integrated suite of applications.