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A major multinational corporation needed a real-time data warehouse to support customer service and maintenance requirements. Network and customer data was delayed for two days before it was accessible. Data was not being collected and organized in a usable fashion. Existing resources were overwhelmed by the millions of events spread across a variety of systems and message types.  Key challenges included:

  • High Volume: Average of 750 million discrete events per day, with peaks of 100,000 events per second;
  • Real Time Data Recovery: Access required within 1 second of collection;
  • Dynamic User Requirements: Increasing with rapid customer base growth;
  • Security: Some data collected contained customer-sensitive information;
  • 100% Availability:  System could not ever be out of service.

David’s team developed an architecture, deployed a prototype system, and established a full production system including these components:

  • Grid Computing: Advanced grid computing techniques in each component including the database itself;
  • High-Availability Platform: Components selected for full availability;
  • Multilevel Buffering: A buffering strategy was implemented to prevent blocking operations, even when different parts of the system were under varying load;
  • Pluggable Loaders: The system easily adapts to new forms of data that were not part of the original design.

Corporation is now supported with one of the largest and most sophisticated data warehouse systems in the world.  Results of this success:

  • Increased Profitability:
    • Increased service representative and technician efficiency
    • Removed the cost and loss of data caused by outages
    • Improved management oversight and business efficiencies
  • Increased Customer Satisfaction:
    • Reduced customer wait and problem resolution time
    • Proactive and rapid troubleshooting
Testimonials

I engaged with Research At Work Consulting for review of the University of Michigan Enterprise Analytics Roadmap. We asked the RAW team to look for areas that were either underrepresented or missing. Since we thought we had done a comprehensive roadmap, we were surprised with the results. The RAW team did an excellent job of comparing our roadmap to national standards and identifying areas requiring additional definition. It was a thoughtful and thorough review.

Mary Hill
Director of Data Management Services / University of Michigan Medical School

I hired Cory to lead the design and development of a website documenting the research network. Cory identified a great designer/ developer and managed the project perfectly. The design and content were outstanding, and the website launched on schedule. Simply put, Cory is outstanding and I will hire him again.

Carl DiSalvo
Associate Professor / Georgia Institute of Technology

David has a superior ability to quickly assess a situation and identify business needs then translate them into an action plan.

Kerry Little

Cory is a top notch professional. In addition to being a strong Human Factors consultant, he was also instrumental in management collaboration and decision making. His expertise, focus, and creativity under pressure made him a tremendous asset to our team.

Paul Cutsforth
District Sales Manager / Cequent Performance Products

Cory was a pleasure to work with on a critical training development project. He brought deep knowledge of adult learning theories to his work and presented us with practical suggestions that improved our training delivery almost immediately. In addition to delivering the project, Cory also helped us to gain better insight into our own processes and work culture.

Sara Ulius-Sabel
Global Innovation Senior Manager / Whirlpool Corporation

Cory’s interdisciplinary background gave him the ability to see patterns and solutions across different domains that were not apparent to others on the team. These valuable insights have led to opportunities for improvement in the way Intel manages its relationships with academic institutions. I am looking forward to my next occasion to work with Cory.

Ken Anderson
Principal Researcher / Intel Corporation

David drove the project to completion and was extremely effective in a difficult corporate environment. I would hire him again without question.

Warren Schlicting
Senior Vice President / Comcast

I had the opportunity to hire Cory to document a multi-year, multi-institution (academic and industry) research network that involved over 70 participants with as many projects. Cory conducted interviews with key members of the research network, reviewed key projects, analyzed this data, and produced a detailed report on the activities of the network, with an emphasis on analyzing the structures of collaboration that did and did not work. The report was simply outstanding. Throughout the project, Cory constantly excelled in both his social skills and his research skills. His deliverables were on time and thorough, and his insights were exceptional.

Carl DiSalvo
Associate Professor / Georgia Institute of Technology

David has the uncanny gift of identifying business needs by asking on-the-mark questions at a macro level and translating them to applications in a most granular and accurate fashion.

Gerard Broussard

Cory contributed great thought leadership to our project - especially in the area of adult learning and best practices. He was attentive, diligent, and a pleasure to work with. If you're looking for a strategic consultancy with a diverse yet competent portfolio, RAW Consulting should be your clear stop!

Annaliese Wimbleton
Global Innovation Manager / Whirlpool Corporation