CUSTOMERS

Danone’s dairy plant in Irapuato, Mexico

In revisiting its production planning and detailed scheduling systems at its dairy plants, Danone decided to invest in the SAP APO supply chain management (SCM) system. This led the company to also adopt ILOG Plant PowerOps (PPO).

ILOG PPO is an interactive production planning and detailed scheduling application built on top of the most fine-grained optimization models available for process manufacturing. Combined with SAP APO, it provides precise functionality for improving key operational performance metrics, and gives planners a better tool for performing what-if analysis and rescheduling.

Used at Danone’s dairy plant in Irapuato, Mexico, ILOG PPO generates fully optimized plans in under 15 minutes. Instead of scheduling production weeks in advance, the company is able to do so as needed, a real competitive advantage in a market with an annual growth rate of 25 percent.

“We have compared production plans generated with and without ILOG Plant PowerOps,” says Jean-Michel Egu, director of business solutions at Danone. “We have been extremely happy to see that ILOG’s application generates plans that improve every single one of our key performance indicators.”

Danone is a leader in the food and beverage industry. Approximately 56 percent of the company’s revenue comes from its fresh dairy product division, which has more than 40 plants worldwide. The division grew over 9 percent in 2006 alone, and experienced year-on-year growth rates exceeding 20 percent in several emerging markets, including Russia, Turkey, Argentina and Mexico.

Pouring steel to measure

Advanced Information Systems (AIS: www.steelplanner.com) is a software company that specializes in developing and implementing decision-support solutions for production planning and supply chain logistics in the steel industry. Its SteelPlanner® suite of supply chain management (SCM) and manufacturing execution system (MES) modules is used at more than 40 steel plants in 27 countries, making AIS a leading global provider of software solutions to the steel industry.

Modules within the suite use ILOG CPLEX, the market-leading mathematical programming software, to solve the linear problems within complex optimization models built by AIS domain experts. The combination of ILOG CPLEX and SteelPlanner generates optimal production plans that map to standard business processes and operational constraints that include lot sizing and campaign and/or shift duration.

“We use ILOG CPLEX’s LP and MIP solver in combination with our own solvers and heuristics,” says Thomas Quinet, commercial director at AIS. “The combination of ILOG CPLEX’s well-known robustness for solving the linear problem with our in-house-built advanced optimization techniques and our unique expertise in the steel industry allows us to maintain our leading role in the industry and solve the most complex logistic challenges.”

End users meet regulations with ILOG JRules

The IFRS regulations are complex and constantly changing, often making them difficult to meet. To ensure IFRS compliance while streamlining processes for more effective, agile financial reporting, DekaBank has implemented a reporting solution based on ILOG JRules, ILOG’s top business rule management system.

Faster time to market for new rules
ILOG JRules has replaced business rules once hard-coded in the bank’s IT systems. Now, business users in the bank’s fund-reporting division directly change the rules applied in the reporting process. The bank’s technical teams also benefit, as ILOG JRules supports their best practices and preferred development systems.

Changes take only one or two days to implement now. For a major project, the new system can allow as many as 2,800 new rules to be written and deployed in four weeks by just four users, reducing DekaBank’s time to market for new IFRS rules by more than 50 percent. It also lets the bank provide three different reporting templates – banking, insurance and industries – and reports customized to the requirements of individual clients.

“Pressure on banks to comply with financial reporting standards is always immense, and the latest IFRS directive is no exception,” says Kalliopi Minga, head of financial and regulatory reporting at DekaBank. “The ILOG solution allows us to meet such demands head on and has already provided us with tangible business benefits.”

The IFRS solution has been so successful that DekaBank has adapted it to handle Basel II reporting as well.

Fannie Mae helps customers buy homes

Fannie Mae (www.fanniemae.com) can attest to the advantages of using an automated underwriting system. Since 1968, the company has helped more than 63 million customers purchase homes, and in recent years, it has come to depend on its Desktop Underwriter (DU) system to process loans.

In 2001, Fannie Mae began using ILOG’s business rule management system (BRMS) in DU to further automate the company’s mortgage loan underwriting process. ILOG BRMS reduces the time needed to process loan requests, eliminates duplicate data and shortens Fannie Mae’s response time to business and regulatory changes.

Greater speed and agility
The ILOG BRMS integration has helped Fannie Mae cut its mortgage delivery time and offer more innovative business and technology solutions through DU. The system also requires fewer dedicated IT staff, enabling them to focus on other key systems.

“As we continue to expand our use of business rule management solutions, we remain focused on driving greater speed and agility within DU,” says Celina Binns, vice president of Automated Underwriting Technology at Fannie Mae.

“We are pleased to work with ILOG,” adds Ms. Binns, “to leverage their business rule management systems to help us reduce our time to market, improve operational efficiencies, and ultimately, offer our customers better service.”

Nedasco supports 26 insurance companies in the risk, health and life insurance markets, providing its services exclusively to 1,200 independent sales agents. Following an extensive technical evaluation of commercial BRMS platforms, the company decided to automate its underwriting process with ILOG JRules to deliver faster, more reliable service.

Highly scalable solutions
ILOG JRules was chosen for its ability to handle a large number of business rules efficiently. Nedasco applies about 3,000 rules for suppliers, lines of business and sales channels. By replacing its manual system with the ILOG JRules-driven system, Nedasco has increased its productivity by 50 percent, clearing insurance policies quickly and more accurately at less cost.

The new system ensures a higher rate of straight through processing, and frees employees in Nedasco’s acceptance department from repetitive tasks, enabling them to concentrate on complex cases.

“The development of our underwriting system, facilitated by ILOG JRules, has enabled us to provide a faster, more efficient and accurate service to our customers,” says Erik Geels, director finance and ICT, Nedasco. “It has also strengthened the position of Nedasco and our intermediaries within the competitive Dutch insurance market.”