September 2011 Newsletter - Detail
Industry heads impressed with Pilbara
Leaders of prominent advisory and development groups had their first look at the Pilbara during a visit hosted by Infrastructure Australia and the Pilbara Development Commission.
National Infrastructure Coordinator Mr Michael Deegan and General Manager of Infrastructure Reform with Infrastructure Australia Ms Victoria White, accompanied Mr Paul Myers of the Caravel Group, Mr Tim Mawhood, Mr Michael Eyers and Mr David Beslich on a fact-finding mission to the resources heart of Western Australia.
During an intensive visit, the group toured some of the major projects and met many of the key stakeholders in both Karratha and Port Hedland.
A highlight of the visit was a low-altitude flight over the West Pilbara, exposing them to the magnitude of development in the Pilbara and the impact of new projects such as the Ashburton North Strategic Industrial Area, Cape Preston, Cape Lambert expansion and the proposed port site at Anketell.
Briefings were also provided by a range of agencies, including local government and port authorities, on issues critical to the continued development of the region.
Pilbara Development Commission CEO Stephen Webster said it was great to be involved with the Infrastructure Australia visit.
“Particularly as, apart from Michael Deegan and Victoria, none of the group had previously been to the Pilbara,” he said.
”They were amazed at the immense growth and continued potential of the region but also conscious of the particular challenges of working in the Pilbara.”
Mr Deegan of Infrastructure Australia said that he was very pleased with how the visit had gone and the information gathered by the group during their time in the Pilbara.
Article reproduced with permission from the Pilbara Echo. To read the original article click on the link below.
http://pilbaraecho.com.au/?p=2136
Caravel scores with 'Winning Insights' review!
In an effort to understand how the business was performing both against normal benchmarks and its peers, the Caravel Group embarked on an online review designed by Taylored Assessments. The review, ‘Winning Insights’ is a diagnostic tool which provides business leaders with a formula to assess their organisation against the Winning organisations of today.
It is targeted at those people who know most about their organisation's performance and provides them with accurate information about where to focus their resources for future success.
The review enables business leaders to accurately identify the ‘Opportunity Gaps’ within their organisations, allowing them to quickly locate the areas that require specific attention to improve management, practices and performance.
Based on two major research projects completed between 2002 and 2007 and utilising the ‘Winning Wheel’ concept derived by Graeme Cocks of the Melbourne Business School in his award-winning book “The First XI”, the review provides organisations with the ability to take a complete look at their business, identify their ‘performance gaps’ and implement structured plans to make improvements for sustainable and profitable success in the future.
It measures and benchmarks organisations against nine dimensions that ‘winning organisations’ do differently, compared with other organisations, with the results providing multi-level analysis, in each of the nine dimensions.
As a result of the review we summarised that the Winning Insights review helped optimise stakeholder value for Caravel by;
- Identifying items that really did matter to the business (important and critical).
- Placing appropriate priorities and focus on those items to be addressed.
- Reducing time wasted on things which, while annoying to the business really weren’t important enough to take up valuable resources.
Founder and Director of Taylored Assessments Wendy Taylor said, “I’m pleased to advise you that based on the results of your online review, Caravel has a very high level of attainment (in fact the best of all those organisations reviewed to date) in terms of organisational performance as measured against other leading organisations
Addressing all 9 parts of the Winning Insights Wheel, the Opportunity Gaps between the level of importance and the assessed performance, together with the variation between respondents, was the minimum recorded in any review so far. Congratulations on running a well-informed and highly focused organisation!
Catalogue of issues created for rail operator
Caravel has recently completed an assignment for one of Australia’s rail operators. The assignment was to review one of the city’s major construction projects and determine what impact it was likely to have on rail operations. As a result of the review a catalogue of issues which had the potential of having an adverse impact on rail operations was created. This catalogue was prioritised in levels of criticality to enable the most logical approach to addressing the issues.
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A new member joins the Caravel team
A Project Manager in the making has recently joined the Caravel team. Levi Marcus Negron was recently born to Caravel Project & Change Managers Alex & Rachel. Levi is the Negron’s third child, but happily for Alex, their first boy! At 6.6lbs he was a little on the light side to start straight away, but as soon as he’s up and about we’ll have him out there flying the Caravel flag! Our best wishes go to Alex, Rachel and of course Levi.
And another new member.....
We are pleased to welcome Chris Downes to the team. Chris joined Caravel to provide additional strength and capacity to the critical human resources and training areas of the business.
Chris started his career as a science teacher in the UK. He then spent periods with the NSW Department of Education, the Universities of Sydney & Melbourne and finally Victoria University. For the last 10 years Chris has been responsible for international education, encouraging overseas students to come and learn here in Australia.
A life-long career in education, training, and people development has now led Chris to join Caravel where he provides a full range of services as Director of HR and Training. Chris holds a higher research degree from Macquarie University in addition to qualifications from the University of London.
Rail Management Centre project moving forward
Caravel is working with one of Australia’s largest rail operators to determine the feasibility of creating a new, state-of-the-art Rail Management Centre for the network. The project will complete its Concept Development Stage in October and will then enter into the pre-feasibility stage. The project is progressing well and if approved, the execution phase of the project is likely to commence around the middle of 2012.
Bank project proceeds at pace
Australia’s banks, already known to be some of the most successful in the world, are looking to improve the way that they operate. Caravel is working with one of Australian’s banks helping to rationalise and improve the myriad of policies and procedures which have expanded exponentially over time. The project team has been hard at it for over a year now so the bank should start to see the benefits of the many hours of hard work in the not too distant future.
NZ news - but not the Rugby World Cup!
Caravel’s New Zealand team continues to work closely with the NZ Government, even through the distraction of the Rugby World Cup. The team is currently undertaking 3 major assignments; providing independent quality assurance services to a leading government agency, it has been retained for a further 2 years to manage a major law enforcement agency’s Project Management Office and is commencing a significant program management assignment with the national rail carrier to support it’s urban transport renewal program.
Did you know.....?
That Caravel has just celebrated its 21st birthday. The company was founded in 1990 by Paul Myers and Warren Hall in New Zealand’s capital city Wellington. Both having backgrounds in the large consulting companies, they decided to take the plunge and formed Caravel with a desire to create a specialist project management services company. Caravel has since expanded and opened additional offices in Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
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