n.SKEP will benefit on the long term of every technological advances of ILOG.

DynaSys, international editor of Supply Chain Planning solutions, signed a new contract with ILOG, the leader on the market of optimization technologies. This new agreement is the logical result of the one signed in 1988 between the two companies and will strengthen their collaboration for the next ten years.

10 years of common success

In 1988 after comparing the different solutions on the market, DynaSys chose to integrate in its planning tools the motor of linear optimization ILOG CPLEX. So for 10 years, a DynaSys team has been working in collaboration with the ILOG experts in a purpose of improvement of their planning solutions, so they can answer better to the market needs.

DynaSys has built a real know-how on the ILOG optimization motors in the modelling of its customers industrial constraints (capacity, stock, delay, limitation period, batch size…), the modelling of its optimization targets (service level, stock balancing, supply cost, production, transportation, stock) or modelling and piloting of ILOG CPLEX.

At the same time, ILOG has upgraded its optimization motor, particularly within the context of its use for Supply Chain application. Each new version brought its improvement batches which have systematically enabled DynaSys customers to elaborate plans with better quality, in a shorter and shorter lead time.

This complementary between business know-how and understanding of industrial needs in one hand, and control of the techniques of linear programming on the other hand, is the guarantor of a successful collaboration and of the evolution of DynaSys Supply Chain Planning tools.

Companies like Nestlé, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Cadbury, LVMH, Panzani, Ethypharm, Marie Brizard, etc. could so obtain convincing results as well as on the level of stock reduction, the improvement of the customer service level, than the optimization of the global costs of their Supply Chain. The managers of these companies also note an improvement of the productivity of their planners who have access quickly and easily to optimized plans.

The awaited benefits

The new contract that united the two companies allows DynaSys to widespread the ILOG CPLEX use in its n.SKEP product, to simplify the distribution and to test the new CPLEX versions and options more easily.

Jean-Luc Rominger, DynaSys Research & Development Manager, explains to us: “We’re going to generalize and intensify the use of ILOG solutions. Then we’ll be able to purpose optimization always more effective and in adequacy with the market requirements.

If, at the beginning of the 2000’ for example, our algorithms could efficiently work with a few hundred references, the intensive researches that we made in collaboration with specialized laboratories such as LIP6 in Paris, LAAS in Toulouse, etc., and the integration of new ILOG CPLEX versions enable now our clients to optimize their multi-levels plans for several thousands references.

The ILOG expertise and the technological performances of CPLEX give us the possibility to focus on the business constraints of our users. The work in progress will enable soon to propose to our clients optimization algorithms more powerful, which will take into account always thinner their constraints and industrial requirements more and more complex, just as the constant increase with the number of references to manage. ILOG CPLEX is today totally encapsuled in our n.SKEP solution which enables the planner to indicate by simple parametering its own business rules and its optimization priorities .

The latest n.SKEP version (version 2.3.01) integrates the version 11 og ILOG CPLEX, announced in November 2007.

The point of view of the companies

Ariel Weil , Managing Director of DynaSys, confides to us: “We initialized the first collaboration in 1998, and ten years after, hardly of our results more than convincing with the ILOG tools, we wished to conclude a reinforced agreement on a longer term. This new ten-year agreement will enable DynaSys to invest on the long term to offer optimization algorithms more powerful to its clients, and covering larger domains. We’re going to recruit new engineers experts in optimization to accelerate the implementation of these new algorithms. DynaSys will benefit from the technological advances of the ILOG solutions as further as their availability. As for ILOG, our Research & Development department will share its experience, its vision of the future and its knowledge of the market needs.”

Thomas Duong, director of the ILOG optimization products line, declares: “We’re happy to work in close collaboration with the DynaSys team. For ten years, DynaSys has been sharing its experience with us, allowing us so to improve CPLEX, especially by multiplying by ten its average performances as regards mixed programming in whole numbers (MIP) in relation to CPLEX 10. Such improvements reinforce the competitive advantages of ILOG such as DynaSys.”