Michael Coward Email & Phone Number

Toronto, Canada Area

(on contract)While working to an extremely tight schedule and achieving consensus among all stakeholders, prepared procedure manuals for ESI Canada's Operations group in support of a Health Canada program (NIHB) providing coverage for health-related goods and services to First Nations people and Inuit.

(on contract)A major contributor to the preparation of functional specifications and user interface design for Canada’s first web-based Health Benefits Management System, comprising more than 500 web pages, and providing customers, for the first time, with a single platform to handle all claims for a wide variety of services including pharmacy, dental and extended healthcare services.

(on contract)Prepared an electronic toolkit to aid all CEDEC regional offices in the development of an information management strategy, specifically addressing the issues of records retention and disposition, electronic document management and the management of email messages as corporate records. Prepared the presentation and workshop materials for (and hosted) a workshop for CEDEC regional directors providing an introduction to records management.

(on contract)• Contract consultant at Royal LePage Relocation Services for more than 10 years with increasing responsibility eventually leading to a management role in the IT department. Acting as application architect and database designer, played a key role in the development of several information systems allowing the company to accommodate the information and operational requirements of a number of new products, the acquisition of multiple relocation companies and some significant contract wins, notably a major Federal Government relocations contract which grew the business by 18,000 moves per year.• Managed the design, development and implementation of a B2B application facilitating communication between Royal LePage Relocation Services and their network of lawyers significantly reducing turnaround time and improving the accuracy of the legal documentation exchanged.

(on contract)• Managed the twelve-month conversion of a complex WAN-based information system, affecting more than 150 users in more than 30 offices, from a second-generation database to SQL Server thus improving system performance and reliability and permitting greater flexibility with front-end development.• Designed and developed an innovative set of programs to consolidate the data on stand-alone computers in 28 offices of Royal LePage Relocation Services across Canada. The move permitted the company to delay the significant infrastructure costs of a WAN.• Managed the integration of various third-party software programs at Royal LePage Relocation Services including Maximizer, Crystal Enterprise and Solomon and participated actively in the design and development of custom applications that replaced some third-party functionality reducing the need for software licenses and resulting in direct savings to the bottom-line.• Worked closely with the controller to design and develop a set of reports to support the company's securitization program with a major financial institution. By securitizing client receivables, RLRS was able to cost-effectively raise capital to fund the Government Relocation Program and pass the cost savings, resulting from reduced borrowing costs, on to their clients.

(on contract)Designed and developed a low-cost information system at Owens Corning's Huntingdon, PA manufacturing location whose key objectives were to drive productivity and profitability and to increase visibility into operator performance metrics. Once implemented, the system increased operator engagement and improved morale and was the basis for improving throughput of the three mat lines by over 25% and reducing costs by over 30%. Gross margins increased from high single digits to above 40% over the course of two years. As a result of this turn-around, the company subsequently invested $40MM in a second manufacturing location.

(on contract)

(on contract)

(on contract)Designed, developed and implemented an application for CBC Newsworld to track the various cable companies that offer the channel, allowing the company to more easily calculate and report subscriber fees, to generate revenue forecast reports and to identify discrepancies in the information provided by the cable companies.

(on contract)

Client List: Royal LePage Real Estate Services Ltd., CIBC Finance, North York Hydro