Profits
(Planning and Revenue Optimisation for International Transportation Services)
In industry, optimisation techniques often faces the challenge of remaining flexible to business changes, because mathematical models are usually constructed based on some assumptions. When a business scenario changes, the optimisation model may no longer be applicable. In this project, we explore a rule engine based optimisation technology to increase the flexibility in practical business applications.
The technology is used in load/stowage planning, pricing optimisation, capacity allocation, and routing optimisation for transportation services. Additionally, analytics technologies such as demand forecasting and customer analysis are also developed.
Pricing Optimisation
Profitability can be very sensitive to changes in price. Companies often rely on gut feeling for cost plus approaches and inconsistent processes. In hyper-competitive markets, margin improvements through pricing optimisation can drive huge profit gains and drive market share.
Pricing optimisation incorporate advanced statistics and algorithms that let companies optimise the price at which they sell under specific objectives and constraints, allowing users to understand the price elasticity of their products. Price optimisation enables companies to effectively generate recommendations for pricing, markdown, promotion and space & category management.
Risk Management Dashboard
The increasing dynamism and complexity of the modern global economy has put enterprise risk management high on the agenda of many companies.
The Risk Management Dashboard focuses on models of credit risk, market risk and operational risk. These risks are linked to business processes/products, organisations, controls, and economic capital for performance management. The models and the algorithmically derived risks are viewed using a dashboard of gauges maps, charts, and other graphical elements
Risk Management in Food Safety
Food Safety plays a crucial role in today's society, and is a serious matter for consumers as well as for companies involved in the food chain. To address these issues, we design a risk assessment and analysis to ensure all operations throughout the supply chain are in control and in compliance with industry regulations and standards, with traceability modeling and analysis to support global regulatory compliance, improved food safety and brand protection.
Services Science, Management and Engineering SSME
The global economy is changing. The service industry is become an important driving force for a sustainable economy and a major solution to the serious under-employment issue. At the same time, the service industry is transforming itself through the use of IT, and is now often referred to as a modern service industry. Although many countries have special programs and polices to promote the creation of modern services, there has not yet been large-scale growth of new service practices. The objective of SSME research is to propel the development of modern service industry.
To realise this, we'd like to collaborate with government, universities and industry in China to establish SSME by demonstrating some examples of building a modern service industryˇ± based on methodology, tools, and component libraries.
Branch Recognition
Branch Reconfiguration is focusing on challenges for global and local banks to optimise their branch networks (branch location, type, capacity) based large scale data analysis and optimisation techniques. This can bring business value for banks by increasing their profitability and competency. The technology has won global awards from external academic communities, and has been successfully applied in various leading banks in the market.
ROSS
IBM Retail Optimised Site Solution (ROSS) provides both a methodology and tooling to enable rationalisation of store site network by strategically configuring stores with the right format, capacity and merchandise mix in the right location to serve right customers.
ROSS can help retailers answer following questions:
- Target Customer Concentration
- Market Potential Forecasting
- Promising Areas Identification
- Store Location
- Store Relocation
- Store Sale Prediction
- Store Merchandising
Integrated Distribution Outage Planner (IDOP)
IBM Integrated Distribution Outage Planner (IDOP) solution delivers an innovative offering to utility power customers. It will help make an optimised maintenance outage plan by year/month/week/day. IDOP considers multiple constraints and optimisation objectives to provide an optimised arrangement of outage tasks, including the time frame arrangement and load transfer paths for each outage task. This helps to reduce outage frequency, black out time, loss of crew time and increases asset utilisation.
Petroleum Retailing Optimisation Solution (PETROS)
IBM Petroleum Retailing Optimisation Solution (PETROS) provides a methodology and tooling to enable an optimised customer-centric retail outlet network and business service planning. This can help an oil company to:
- Optimise gas station network, e.g. location, distance
- Provide customised business service configuration, e.g. oil product, convenience store, auto service, restaurants & motel, charge agency services
- Merchandise Configuration of convenience stores
- Optmise Oil depot location, e.g. location,capacity
ATM Utility
ATM Utility is a quantitative analysis and optimisation asset for configuring an ATM Supply Chain. Based on ATM operational data, geographic and demographic data, this asset can help predict market potential, locate or relocate ATMs, forecast cash demands, optimise cash inventory and replenishing policies.
SCPM
SCPM is a consulting and decision support tool which incorporates industry standards, best practices, and advanced A&O (Analytics and Optimisation) technologies in an integrated workbench to support a process-centric supply chain transformation. SCPM is built on a standard IBM Business Process Management product ¨CWebSphere Business Modeler. It can be used as a modeling tool to capture and document supply chain processes, and also as a diagnostic tool to quantitatively understand supply chain strategy and process strengths & weaknesses and where value is generated. SCPM can simplify and accelerate the transition from business modeling to IT implementation. SCPM supports major scenarios in a supply chain transformation journey, such as supply chain diagnostics, supply chain process design, and implementing packaged SCM solutions such as SAP.
Supply Chain Network Optimisation Workbench SNOW
Supply Chain Network Optimisation Workbench is a supply chain modeling and optimisation solution which supports strategic decision-making across an entire supply chain, from supplier portfolio optimisation, manufacturing strategy design, to distribution network rationalisation. Based on leading-edge mathematical modeling and optimisation techniques, SNOW helps clients to reduce supply chain costs, minimise carbon emission and improve service levels.
Transportation Operations Modal Analysis TOMA
Transportation Operations Modal Analysis (TOMA) is a decision support system for transportation resource management, planning, and scheduling. The objective is to help customers reduce their transportation costs and increase their transportation asset utilisation. Using advanced analytics and optimisation technologies, TOMA leverages the master data in a company's ERP system to generate optimal transportation plans including carrier selection, transportation routes, shipment times, pick/drop sequences, and asset utilisation.
SCM Simulator
SCM Simulator is an integrated supply chain simulation platform to capture supply chain dynamics in detail to provide great insights to the supply chain's real operation. The architectural design enables simulation templates by industries. The SCM Simulator can be used for broad range of scenarios like supply chain policy analysis, risk analysis, cost analysis, service level analysis, and what-if analysis.
Planet
Planet is a web-based, collaborative and optimised supply chain planning system. It supports optimal decision-making on order commitment, availability check, order releasing, shift planning, and shortage reports. |
