Tim Robinson

Industrial Analyst

 

Mail Address:     81 Mahia Road,                     Date of Birth:         4 April 1963

                            Manurewa,                            Nationality:           New Zealander

                            Auckland                               Email:      timrobinson[at]paradise.net.nz

Phone:                 027-257-4401                         (09) 268-0210 (home)        

 

Executive Summary

Skills

Exemplary skills as a scientific programmer.   Twenty-eight years of experience with computers since 1979: four years of commercial programming, six years of scientific research programming, fourteen years of industrial scientific programming since 1993.

PhD in Operations Research (Management Science), BSc (Hons) in mathematics.

High productivity and dedication to excellence.   A talent for graphics and layout.   Excellent command of written and oral English.

Rounded personality with an interest in history, languages and music.   A voracious reader, indefatigable correspondent and witty raconteur.

 

Aspirations

I enjoy working with customers, users and managers.   I can present a case, manage a project and lead a team.   I derive personal satisfaction from seeing how I add value to projects.

 

Location

I live in Manurewa.   As a contractor, I will work anywhere in Auckland, or work from home and fly to another city once a week.   A permanent position would have to be closer to home: South, East or Central Auckland.

 

 

Notable Reference

While acknowledging my unique technical ability, Steve Millington believes that my skills as a business analyst are equally, if not even more valuable: asking the right questions, listening to the answers, communicating effectively with non-technical people, following up efficiently and creating and building long-term client relationships. 

 

Work History

Transpower NZ Ltd                                                                 contract 2007-2008

Performed economic assessment of costs, benefits and reliability for upgrades to the National Grid:

Developed and documented an analysis tool (in Excel and VB) to automate future assessments.

 

Kiwiplan NZ Ltd                                                2000-2004, contract 2005-2007

Developed strategies and tools to support Java development.

Used design patterns, UML, refactoring, unit testing etc.   Wrote formal program specifications for others to implement.

Wrote transport-scheduling system “TSS”, part of Kiwiplan’s production management suite used by hundreds of cardboard box factories worldwide.

Wrote an improved truck-packing algorithm, capable of producing near-optimal packing plans in under a second.

 

Infomace International Ltd                               1997-1999, contract 2005-2007

Performed analysis, programming (VB, .Net), customer liaison and support for “INFOTRAM” milk supply prediction and tanker optimal scheduling system, as used by the two largest dairy companies in the Southern Hemisphere (Bonlac Foods, Australia, and Anchor, New Zealand).

Performed analysis, programming, customer liaison and support for “CILOG”, a strategic extension of INFOTRAM used by Bonlac Foods.

Supervised three programmers translating Designer Textiles core systems (200,000 lines of code) from Wang COBOL to INFORMIX.    Conceived, championed, designed and built a compiler (in VB) to automate translation, doubling productivity.   Implemented a Just-In-Time development strategy.

Used operations research techniques and GIS to create compact and homogeneous delivery/marketing regions, for Circular Distributors Ltd.

 

The Logging Industry Research Organisation (LIRO)                    1993-1996

Wrote a log truck transport-scheduling simulator (in TurboPascal) for research purposes.

Conducted and published transport efficiency audits of Pan Pacific Forest Industries and Cart Holt Harvey Forests (Northern Region).

Wrote a log optimisation system (an embedded system in C), which allows forestry workers to cut each stem into logs of the maximum possible value.

Invented and patented a chain-saw safety device.

Organised two conferences.

 

Fletcher Construction                                                                             1988-1992

Worked in the Information Services Department doing commercial programming, especially ORACLE database.

This was a reengineering project.

 

Referees

Siobhan Procter

Grid Investment Manager, Transpower

Telephone: +64 4 495 7000

 

Steve Millington

Steve Millington is the Director and General Manager of a leading international software development company in New Zealand.   He has been in the I.T. industry for approaching 40 years and has a wealth of experience in programming, systems and business analysis, and management of I.T. professionals.

Telephone: +64 274 428-949

 

Gareth Cronin

Development Manager, Kiwiplan

Bus. +64 9 272-7622 x854, Mob. +64 21 814-387

 

Education

Burnside High School, Christchurch

Received university entrance and a junior scholarship.   Member of the senior debating team.   Dux (top student out of a total roll of over 2000).   Winner, Australian Mathematics Competition 1980.   Winner, New Zealand Senior Mathematics Competition 1980.

University of Canterbury, Christchurch

Obtained a BSc. with first class honours majoring in mathematics, and a UGC scholarship to study for a PhD.   Also took some papers in computer science and operations research.

University of Auckland

Conducted research and submitted thesis entitled “Rectangular Stock Cutting Using Optimisation”.   Obtained a thorough grounding in the latest theory and techniques of linear programming, set packing and stock cutting.

Massey University

One paper: “Principles of Economics”, A+.

 

Papers Published

T.F. Robinson, Approaches to Log Truck Scheduling and Despatching, Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference (Auckland 1993) of the Operational Research Society of New Zealand, pp 193-200.

S. Bates and T. Robinson, Log Truck Unloading, LIRO report Vol. 19 No. 10 (1994).

T.F. Robinson, Economic Evaluation of Log Truck Scheduling, Proceedings of the 1994 LIRO Conference “Forestry Transport 2000”, Wellington, July 1994, session 3a.

G. Arnold, T. Robinson and N. Wylie (editors), Proceedings of the 1994 LIRO Conference “Forestry Transport 2000”.

T.F. Robinson, Tour Generation for Log Truck Scheduling, Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference (Palmerston North 1994) of the ORSNZ.

T.F. Robinson, Truck Despatching Case Study: The Cost Efficiency of Log Truck Despatching in Hawkes Bay, LIRO Project Report 56, 1995.

T.F. Robinson, Improvement Methods for Log Truck Scheduling, Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference (Wellington 1995) of the ORSNZ.

T.F. Robinson (editor), Proceedings of the LIRO Truck Scheduling Workshop, 1995.

T.F. Robinson, Log Truck Despatching in the Auckland Region, LIRO Report 1996.

T.F. Robinson, Knapsack Graphs, New Zealand Journal of Mathematics, Vol. 26 (1997).

 

Albums

White Rhino (1995), Harlem Taxi (2002), The Elements (2006), White Rhino Returns (2007)