What’sBest! Used to Allocate Doctors/Medical Specialists to Hospitals
Outsourcing: Using What'sBest! to find Who's Best
More companies are outsourcing in an attempt to increase their competitiveness. The challenge becomes determining which products, activities, and functions should be outsourced and which vendors should be used. What'sBest! was used to answer these outsourcing questions in a recent paper entitled "VendOR: A Structured Approach to Vendor Selection and Negotiation". Dr. Charles Weber, one of the authors states, "The ease-of-use was a big factor.... What'sBest! allows us to do it quickly and easily on our own--without calling in programmers."
Telecommunuications Network Design
There have been a number of applications of optimization in the rapidly growing telecommunications industry. For example, LINDO and LINGO have been used to develop optimization models for the design of network structure, in particular, the extent to which hubs are use; and the design of fail-soft redundancy into a network.
The Center for Naval Analysis (CNA) has found What'sBest! can be an extremely useful tool in scheduling upgrades to their fleet of Harrier jets to make sure they have a high number of Harriers operational at all times. "I found What'sBest! very easy to use," says David Kelly, researcher for the CNA.
Efes, the largest beer maker in Turkey, is using LINDO and a mixed integer model to determine the optimal location to build new malt plants as well as the amounts of barley and malt transported among different locations each year. "The economic analysis conducted in the study clearly demonstrated that [the current] alternative was far too expensive relative to its benefits," remarked Serdar Bolukbasi, Marketing Director, EFEs Beverage Group.
Analyzing Flexibility in Global Supply Chains
Dr. Arnd Huchzermeier, of the Graduate School of Management at WHU Kobenz, Germany, with the help of the What'sBest! and LINGO software, has put together a tutorial, which examines critical issues related to the management of global manufacturing and distribution networks.
Researchers at MIT's Integrated Supply Chain Management consortium and supply chain managers at Monsanto used LINDO to analyze the impact of changes in their supply chain, production, distribution, and demand.
Our products have been used to solve network problems at thousands of businesses around the world. However, this is a case of using LINDO to solve a little different type of network problem -- a network television problem.
Each day they scramble through the gates in great hordes expecting to take on the Viper, the Colossus and the Ninja; as well as the Orient Express, the Granny Grand Prix and the Log Jammer; and still squeeze in the Dolphin act, the Buccaneer and the Batman stunt show. By the end of the day, LINDO has helped the managers of Six Flags Magic Mountain Theme Park send them home happy.
Application Leads to Award Winning Paper.
Imagine a single tire that is taller than a Chevy Pickup standing on end, weighs a little more than fourteen Toyota Camrys, and sell for about twice the price of a Cadillac DeVille. Suffice it to say, Bridgestone/Firestone Off-The-Road (BFOR) tires aren't for your averange Sport Utility Vehicle. Finding the best way to assign these extra large tires to molds and molds to curing ovens to maximize production was the enormous problem the plant's production scheduler faced on a daily basis.
LINDO Helps Redesign Supply Chain
P&G Saves a Quarter of a Billion
When you make and globally market over 300 brands of consumer goods with operations in over 70 countries worldwide, efficient work processes are critical. If you want to remain a worldwide market leader in everything from diapers and acne products to antacids and denture creams, you cannot afford unnecessary duplication. Procter & Gamble knows this, and they know just the tools to use to streamline their supply chain.
The use of microorganisms, such as yeast, for the production of useful substances like alcohol and antibiotics is common in industry. The production rate in such processes is affected by the amount of various enzymes present. Prof. Carlos M. González Alcón of Univerdad de La Laguna used LINDO to determine appropriate levels for various enzymes to maximize production.
In September of 1989, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between the U.S. and the USSR was approaching the final stages. After years of negotiations, a magor unresolved issue was the weapon drawdown limits. United States analysts used LINDO the help determine negotiation positions regarding these limits and to access the final START agreement.
Since our last newsletter, OR/MS Today took a close look at What'sBest! One of the goals of the bi-monthly publication is to keep INFORMS members informed on issues related to optimization through news stories, feature articles, and software reviews. In their review of What'sBest!, they had plenty to say.
Forestry Company Trees a Solution with What'sBest!, Excel, and Visual Basic
Forestal Celco S.A., a large Chilean forestry company, uses What'sBest! to optimize production scheduling and distribution.
Phone Company Dials Up Savings with What'sBest!
A What'sBest! customer summarizes his experiences in routing telephone calls.
Stone & Webster Management Consultants, Inc. have developed a Gas Nominations Model, a new optimization model for use in the natural gas industry.
ANIXTER Finds Reel Savings: Cuts Waste in Half
LINDO Systems worked with Anixter to customize a general cutting stock front-end to LINDO to solve their problem.
After scientific peer review, a binary integer linear program was constructed in LINDO to help in deciding where to apply funds to best accomplish NCI's goals.
Bellcore's PDSS Streamlines Purchasing with LINDO
PDSS uses the LINDO optimizer to let managers make least cost purchasing decisions among many vendors, while still allowing individual requirements, such as supplier capacity and dollar award limits, to be satisfied.
The International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (HASA), convening in Vienna, is using LINGO to recommend forest harvesting strategies to help Russia ease her balance of payments problem by exploiting her Siberian timberlands.
