Original pioneers in knowledge management systems
Professor Paul Compton from the University of New South Wales, founded our patented RippleDownTM technology in collaboration with the Garvan institute in 1996. With an original vision to improve cost and quality in health care through superior knowledge management technology, we soon discovered RippleDownTM technology could be deployed across a wide range of industries. In 1998, our technology was generously supported by the Australian Government’s AusIndustry program following a world first trial that demonstrated clinical pathologists with no programming skills could build and maintain our RippleDownTM systems to automate clinical pathology reports. RippleDownTM has since been licensed to 70 locations across Australia, US and Europe.
Over the last 15 years we’ve developed groundbreaking software to solve a multitude of business problems, from data processing to bone mineral density reporting and airline ticketing. Our systems enable subject matter experts to rapidly transfer their knowledge and produce dependable automated versions of their professional judgment.
Today our suite of RippleDownTM systems are deployed in multi-national organizations from health care to airline sectors, transforming the work place and delivering cost effective business results. Our team of dedicated academics have extensive experience and a determined commitment to deliver creative and cutting-edge solutions to our clients.
Our Team
Our clients deploy RippleDownTM Knowledge Bases as core components of their business rules, workflow processes and value-adding services. The Pacific Knowledge Systems team ensures that our Knowledge Base solutions meet the stringent security, safety and privacy requirements demanded in these mission-critical applications.
BRUCE McCONOCHIE
CEO
Prior to joining PKS Bruce McConochie was one of the founders and CEO of Amfac-Chemdata which was established 1984. Amfac Chemdata was a software developer providing solutions to Community and Hospital Pharmacy throughout Australia. With over 20 years experience within this sector Bruce and his team of 300 employees brought significant success, and a market share of 80% within community pharmacy. While CEO for Amfac-Chemdata Bruce successfully negotiated the sale of Amfac-Chemdata to IMS a subsidiary of Dunn and Bradstreet where he remained as CEO and joined the regional Board of IMS.
Bruce joined Pacific Knowledge Systems as CEO in 2005 and has been instrumental in commercializing this unique RippleDownTM technology.
JOHN LEWIS, BCom CA MBA(exec)
CFO
John has over 25 years experience in financial and management roles working in organisations including Deloitte, LVMH Moet Hennessy, Arrow Pharmaceuticals Limited and Boardroom Limited. This has provided John with a broad range or experience across multiple industries and a great depth of understanding of issues faced by organisations. John has considerable experience in business improvement programs, cost saving initiatives, business restructuring, mergers and acquisitions and strategic planning.
PAUL TRIENEKENS: MSc MBA
Medical Director, Europe
Paul Trienekens is based in the Netherlands and is responsible for the establishment of the RippleDown™ product in Europe. As Medical Director Europe of Pacific Knowledge Systems, Paul works with clients to determine clinical solutions using RippleDown™ Knowledge Bases to enhance quality, safety and efficiency in health care environments. This involves pilots to confirm the quality and productivity improvements that RippleDown™ offers to prospective clients in the European market, as well as establishing licensing and strategic partnerships.
Paul is a highly experienced certified clinical biochemist with an additional MSc degree in Immunology. He has held senior management positions in several Public Pathology Organisations and Private Health Sector Organisations. As a CEO he has for 15 years been responsible for one of the largest clinical laboratories/medical diagnostic centres in the Netherlands. He was an early adaptor of the RippleDown™ products in his laboratory in the Netherlands.
Dr SHANE BROWN: PhD
Medical Director
Shane Brown is a highly experienced Senior Management Consultant in the Australian public and private Health sectors. His roles have included IM&T Consulting and Management positions delivering clinical solutions to diverse groups of stakeholders. In a career spanning 25 years, he has held senior positions in Public Pathology Organisations, Central Government Agencies, and Private Health Sector Organisations.
Shane has also been responsible for the implementation of complex information systems to manage clinical reporting and disease management in both National and International settings.
Shane also has extensive experience in Quality Systems Management design and implementation; Risk Management; Standards Development; Software Design and Development and Delivery of software solutions from consolidated data centres.
As Medical Director of Pacific Knowledge Systems, Shane works with clients to determine clinical solutions using RippleDown™ Knowledge Bases to enhance quality, safety and efficiency in health care environments.
Dr LINDSAY PETERS: PhD, Bsc
Chief Technical Officer
In his role as Chief Technical Officer, Lindsay coordinates the Product Development and Research teams, together with the continuous software process improvement activities.
Lindsay has held the position of Software Engineering Manager for a number of defence and communications companies including Siemens Plessey Defence Systems and Global Tracking Systems. Lindsay has also consulted for numerous large software developments, software quality audits, tenders, and algorithm development.
Lindsay has introduced exacting quality standards into the Pacific Knowledge Systems development team based on his 25 years of experience in software management and formal processes.
ROBERT MANSER: MSc
Vice President, Marketing, USA
Rob Manser is based in New Jersey and is responsible for the establishment of the RippleDown™ product in the USA. This involves pilots to confirm the quality and productivity improvements that RippleDown™ offers to prospective clients in the US market, as well as establishing licensing and strategic partnerships.
He brings global sales and marketing experience at the general management level to the PKS team. His experience until the last two years has been in the pharmaceutical industry, when he joined PKS.
Prof PAUL COMPTON (Emeritus, UNSW)
Senior Research Adviser
Paul Compton is the Associate Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Engineering UNSW, the largest engineering faculty in Australia. He is also a Professor in the School of Computer Science and Engineering UNSW and is currently Head of this school.
Prior to joining UNSW he was Head of the Computing Services Group at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and conducted research in a number of areas of medical computing. This included work on GARVAN-ES1, one of the first medical expert systems to go into routine clinical use internationally and Australia’s most successful early expert system. This led to a major research focus on the knowledge acquisition problems for expert systems.
His research has received continuous Australian Research Council funding for over a decade and Paul and his research group have published over 130 scientific papers in the area. Paul has also been a member of the organizing committee or chaired many international workshops on knowledge acquisition over this period.
The major result from his research is a different approach to developing knowledge-based systems whereby, for the first time, systems can be built and maintained by domain experts without knowledge engineering or programming expertise and with little demand on the experts’ time or effort. The commercial utility of this technology has now been proven by Pacific Knowledge Systems.
Dr TIM LAVERS: PhD
Senior Software Engineer
As principal architect, Tim is responsible for the design and implementation of the server and client components of the PKS product suite.
Tim manages the advanced software engineering techniques used in PKS such as Extreme Programming, Extreme Testing and Design By Contract as well as the range of Java technologies used in development and deployment.
Tim and Lindsay recently published “Swing Extreme Testing“. This is a guide and source book for developers wanting to achieve maximum returns on their time through an ‘extreme testing’ policy. The book is base on Tim and Lindsay’s day-to-day work at PKS.
FEDERICO LOPEZ LABORDA: BSc
Senior Software Developer
Federico is a senior engineer in the PKS software team developing the RippleDown product suite.
Prior to joining PKS, he had worked in Europe on a variety of finance and insurance projects. As well as extensive experience in Java and Agile Development methodologies, Federico brings to the development team expertise in advanced frameworks and ‘best practice’ guidelines to constantly improve the team’s productivity and product quality.
Directors
Paul Williams
Paul is a major shareholder of PKS and plays an active role in the business. More recently Paul was the CEO of Registries Ltd. Registries, now known as Boardroom Pty Limited, provided share registry, investor communication and voting services to Corporate Australia. Paul and his team were able to achieve outstanding growth of almost 300% in three years between 2007-10. Prior to Registries, Paul was an Executive Director of Arrow Pharmaceuticals, a Company that grew from start-up to a market capitalization of $700million in 6 years. Paul was responsible for the entire sales division of the company, capturing 50% market share in just under six years. Paul will focus on commercializing the RippleDownTM technology worldwide.
Bruce McConochie
Bruce McConochie has dedicated his career to delivering health care solutions benefiting the patient. Prior to joining PKS, Bruce was one of the founders and CEO of Amfac-Chemdata, established 1984. Amfac Chemdata was a software developer providing solutions to Community and Hospital Pharmacy throughout Australia. With over 20 years experience within the health sector. While CEO for Amfac-Chemdata Bruce successfully negotiated the sale of Amfac-Chemdata to IMS, a subsidiary of Dunn and Bradstreet, where he remained as CEO and joined the regional Board of IMS. Since joining PKS as CEO in 2005, Bruce and his team have distributed RippleDown globally with clients in Australasia, Europe and North America.