Chippington Derrick Consulting is Different
- We are specialists in planning, scheduling and optimisation systems, and in the necessary data design which underpins every successful business system.
- We are widely experienced, and have made extensive use of sophisticated software tools and techniques to solve real-world problems. But we don’t believe in “magic silver bullets”.
- We are aware of and use many “methodologies”, but try to use them wisely where appropriate, with a degree of pragmatism rather than being dogmatic.
- We know that every business does many similar things, but in each case there are also differences which make every case unique. Trying to squash every unique case into a few standard packages and models carries the risk of forcing those clients to abandon their unique selling points and becoming just another standardised business.
- We understand that even though the processes carried out by a business may be simple, there is immense complexity in the miriad ways that different businesses put those processes and systems together to make something unique.
- We try to listen to all interested parties in every case – even the best technical solution may never get used in practice if the users of that system don’t also feel some benefits from using it.
- We won’t try to over-complicate matters – simple solutions are often the best where they can be used. Unfortunately, solutions can’t always be simple, which is why we sometimes use some very sophisticated techniques.
- We have a lot of experience of the most advanced software tools available for solving some types of problems in optimisation and scheduling of resources. These tools are very powerful and have been used to solve many real-world problems, giving very large return on investment and short payback times in many cases.
- We have a lot of experience in analysing the data that is available, and the relationships in that data; this enables us to design good ways of modelling the data which is often useful for clients in itself. These clean and compact data models provide a solid foundation on which business systems can be built, and in many cases provide a robust framework that helps greatly with the integration of systems and the interchange of data between systems.
- We also have a lot of experience with a variety of database systems, which are often used to hold the client’s data and which can often be shared by several related systems.
- We also make extensive use of object-oriented design and programming to implement systems, as this has proven to be an effective technique. Very often there is a simple mapping between the real world data, its representation in a database, and its internal representation in a system implementation. This greatly helps to ensure that the system really does what is expected of it, and makes it easier to update the system later when the requirements change (which they always will).