ORSNZ AGM: Wednesday 28 November 2018

ORSNZ is holding its Annual General Meeting during the upcoming ORSNZ conference on Wednesday the 28th of November from 12:20pm.

The agenda for the meeting is:

  1. Apologies (to [email protected]);
  2. Minutes of the previous AGM;
  3. Matters arising from the minutes;
  4. President’s report;
  5. Honorary Treasurer’s report and financial statements;
  6. Update on Special Interest Groups;
  7. Update on Website / Communications;
  8. Sponsorship of Prizes;
  9. Future Conferences;
  10. Election of officers and auditor;
  11. Other business.

If you cannot attend the meeting, you can assign a proxy to vote on your behalf using the 2nd page of this form. (So long as the form is emailed to [email protected] by Wednesday morning, that is fine.)

Hans Daellenbach Prize Event for Prof Vicky Mabin

By Mike O’Sullivan, ORSNZ President:

It was my pleasure to fly to Wellington to present Prof Vicky Mabin with her Hans Daellenbach Prize. A/Prof Bob Cavana organised an excellent event at which Vicky’s colleagues and students, alongside the Victoria University of Wellington Provost Professor Wendy Larner and local ORSNZ members, honoured Vicky’s distinguished and pioneering career. Special thanks to Bob, Tony Downward (who was responsible for the framed prize in the photos), Andrea Raith, Rosie Read (the ORSNZ Wellington Region contact) and other members of the prize panel (Grant Read and Golbon Zakeri).

My initial impression of Vicky was of a (slightly intimidating) leader of OR in New Zealand. Any discussion of OR in New Zealand at Auckland would inevitably end with “we should talk to Grant (Read at Canterbury), Vicky (at VUW), and Les (Foulds at Waikato)”. I was fortunate at the ORSNZ conference in Christchurch in 2015 to get stuck looking for a taxi with Vicky and Sarah Marshall. In the ensuing conversation I got to know Vicky a little and gained an increased understanding and appreciation of her work. Since then I have enjoyed our discussions on OR and the Theory of Constraints and my experience in OR consultancy over the past 5+ years has convinced me that Vicky’s “soft OR” has a vital part to play if we, as OR practitioners, are successful in embedding best-practice decision making in organisations throughout NZ and worldwide.

Vicky’s colleagues and students were generous in their praise and admiration of Vicky, who responded with an engaging, illuminating acceptance speech (that only increased my interest in collecting stories about the history of the ORSNZ!). Congratulations and well done Prof Vicky Mabin, Hans Daellenbach Prize recipient for 2017!

The full citation for Vicky’s prize is here: http://orsnz.org.nz/Prizes/VickyMabin2017/Prof%20Vicky%20Mabin%20-%20Citation%20for%20Hans%20Daellenbach%20Award.pdf

The Victoria University of Wellington article on the event is here: https://www.victoria.ac.nz/vbs/about/news/1715544-professor-vicky-mabin-receives-orsnz-hans-daellenbach-prize

2018 Joint NZSA/ORSNZ Conference Information

The 2018 Joint NZSA/ORSNZ Conference will be held at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand from Tuesday 27th November – Friday 30th November 2018.   General conference information, registration information and an overview of the schedule are available via the conference website.

Conference Programme: The conference programme is available here.  Use the left hand menu to browse different days or search for a particular speaker.

Conference Dinner: The ORSNZ conference dinner will be held on Wednesday 28 November from 6:30pm. If you forgot to request a dinner ticket when you registered for the conference, please contact the ORSNZ conference team at [email protected] (Note the two societies are holding separate dinners).

NZ Analytics Forum: An NZ Analytics Forum event will be held on Thursday 29th November 3:30pm – 5:10pm. For further information and to register refer to this post.

 

NZ Analytics Forum at ORSNZ and NZSA Conference – Analytics in Agriculture

The NZ Analytics Forum invites you to their event on Analytics in Agriculture, in partnership with the joint ORSNZ and NZSA Conference @ Massey University, Palmerston North. It is free to attend whether you are at the conference or not, but please register at the link below if you plan to attend.

The event is free of charge and is kindly sponsored by Fonterra.
When: Thursday 29th November 3:30pm – 5:10pm, followed by drinks and nibbles until 6pm
Where: Massey University, Palmerston North in the AgHort lecture block

Registration: Please register via this link

Mark Piper, Director Group Research & Development, Fonterra
At the age of 19 Mark joined the New Zealand Dairy Group (which later became part of Fonterra). In the 24 years Mark has been with Fonterra he has worked in the manufacture of casein and cheese, coordinated supply chain activities for sales into Japan and Korea, managed a technical team for Fonterra Japan and was a Product Group Manager for Fonterra’s global cheese business. Mark moved to Chicago in 2010 and was the Regional Director Ingredients Americas for Fonterra before relocating back to New Zealand in January 2016 to head up the Transformation Office for Fonterra. In February 2017, Mark relocated to Palmerston North to head up Fonterra’s Global Research & Development teams.

Mark will talk about his role inside Fonterra as the head of our Research and Development function, how Analytics is used inside Fonterra to assist in the development of new products, improvement of existing formulations and to improve the food quality standards too.

Vanessa Cave, Team Leader of Statistics in the Bioinformatics and Statistics Group, AgResearch
Vanessa has more than 10 years’ experience collaborating with scientists in the agricultural and environmental sciences, using statistics to solve real-world problems. As a biometrician, Vanessa provides expertise on experiment and survey design, data collection and management, statistical analysis, and the interpretation of statistical findings. Her interests include data visualisation, analysis and integration of high-dimensional datasets, and the statistical challenges related to digital agriculture. Vanessa is also a developer of the Genstat statistical package, a data analysis tool particularly suited to applications in agri-science.

Vanessa’s Talk: Digital Agriculture at AgResearch
Agriculture is one of New Zealand’s largest export income earners. However, digital technologies and analytics are transforming the agricultural industry. AgResearch, a Crown Research Institute that exists to provide science and technology for the benefit of the New Zealand’s agricultural sector, is involved in a number of scientific research projects aimed at preparing New Zealand for the era of “Digital agriculture”. Digital agriculture refers to the use of new and advanced technologies, integrated into one system, to help make farming (more) profitable and sustainable. It offers the potential to provide solutions for the challenges facing New Zealand agriculture. In this presentation, we will describe a suite of recent research projects that can be loosely grouped under the Digital Agriculture umbrella.

Kim Frew, Strategic Delivery Partner, Advanced Analytics Strategy Lead, Fonterra
Kim is a Strategic Delivery Partner in VelocityNXT, Fonterra’s innovation and transformation programme and a key member of the Fonterra Advanced Analytics Community of Expertise. She has held a number of roles over the last four years at Fonterra in the Office of the CFO, NZMP (Fonterra’s Ingredient business) and in Velocity & Innovation. Her focus is cross-functional problem solving using the technical, human and business aspects of creating sustainable value through analytics, where she acts as an agent of change. Kim has also previously worked across multiple industries as an analytics consultant.
Kim will speak to the use cases Fonterra is exploring to create new value, how we ensure people are empowered at the centre of analytics design and delivery and the potential for analytics in our ecosystem for innovation.

We look forward to seeing you at this exciting event,
The NZ Analytics Forum Steering Committee

ORSNZ Annual General Meeting 2018

ORSNZ is holding its Annual General Meeting during the upcoming ORSNZ conference on Wednesday the 28th of November from 12:30pm.

The tentative agenda for the meeting is:

  1. Apologies (to [email protected]);
  2. Minutes of the previous AGM;
  3. Matters arising from the minutes;
  4. President’s report;
  5. Honorary Treasurer’s report and financial statements;
  6. Update on Special Interest Groups;
  7. Update on Website / Communications;
  8. Sponsorship of Prizes;
  9. Future Conferences;
  10. Election of officers and auditor;
  11. Other business.

Please send any additional items through to [email protected] by Monday 19 November, along any documentation that you would like to have circulated to members.