I a member of ILOG’s ONE Web Program team whose role is to promote the use of Web 2.0 technologies across the company’s internal and external websites. I am based at ILOG’s offices in Paris.
In thanking everyone for joining in the conversation at DIALOG 08, Jean-François Abramatic, ILOG’s Chief Product Officer was reminded of the second World Wide Web Conference that he attended in Chicago in 1994.
In the closing session of that event, the attendees were invited to debate the question of whether or not a physical conference was actually needed any more. After all, we now had the Web and email, so…
After a follow-up paper vote on Monday, the most popular presentation selected for Irv Lustig’s last Opti session of the day was “Writing Better Mixed Integer Programming Models.”
I suspect Irv organized a second vote because he wanted to avoid having to give the “Introduction to ILOG CP Optimizer” presentation which actually won the original electronic vote. Whether or not there was any vote-rigging involved, I don’t know, but I…
It was another working lunch today. I sat in on James’ “lunch and learn” session to hear him sharing feedback from the event and discussing best practices with about a dozen or so customers and ILOGers. Below are a few snippets from the informal discussion.
James was blogging the BRMS track throughout the conference and you can find more insights and commentary in his Live from DIALOG series over on his…
In this session, Prasad Saraph from Bayer Healthcare’s Biotech Pharmaceuticals Division provided a fascinating insight into the supply chain issues that Bayer faces in producing one of its key biotech pharmaceutical products.
Kogenate is a leading treatment for hemophilia-A, a genetically transmitted condition that prevents blood clotting and affects 400,000+ people worldwide.
Prasad began with some startling figures: 1,600 employees in 15 manufacturing plants work continuously throughout the year to…
In this session, Ian Isaac and his colleagues from aigdirect.com described how they use ILOG BRMS and a Service Oriented Architecure to ease the process of integrating mergers and acquisitions into their IT infrastructure.
In the insurance industry, mergers and acquisitions often leave companies with multiple systems for billing, claims and policy administration that tend to fragment processing and impede growth and change management.
ILOG BRMS’s enabled aigdirect.com to face…
Allen Fahden only carries two dollar bills*. Why?
He uses the question to gather feedback from the audience and explore different people’s approaches to innovation and change. He’s quick to point out that there are no wrong answers to the question and hands out two dollar bills to everyone who makes a suggestion. Because two is better than one? Because two dollars is worth (slightly) more than a euro? Because…
Fred Gewant, ILOG’s VP of Americas Field Operations, kickstarted the proceedings today.
Fred has been with ILOG for just over a year but was instrumental in encouraging ILOG to organize DIALOG 08, after a five year hiatus. Fred wants to make DIALOG an annual event, and given the intense interaction and positive energy generated in the first two days, the case for DIALOG 09 is looking very strong indeed! He…
In what I think was probably my favorite session of the day, Anna Ross from New Zealand’s Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd. provided an excellent overview of her company’s operations and the many supply chain issues, challenges, and risks that Fonterra faces every day when competing in global markets.
True to the title of her presentation, Anna began with a quite extraordinary list of facts about her employer. Her first slide,…
In this session, Filippo Focacci, product marketing manager for ILOG’s Supply Chain Management (SCM) product line, presented ILOG Plant PowerOps (PPO) and how it was used to radically improve production planning and scheduling in Danone’s dairy manufacturing plants around the world.
PPO is ILOG’s new integrated planning and scheduling solution for the manufacturing process industry, specifically optimized for fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), pharmaceutical, and chemical processing applications.
The models…
In this session, Andrew Reese hosted a discussion with Rob Wehrman from 3M, Anna Ross from Fonterra and Derek Nelson and David Simchi-Levi from ILOG. The session explored strategies for handling complex supply chain networks and touched on challenges like green logistics, risk management and rising transportation costs.
The session provided real insight into the complexity inherent in manufacturing and shipping on a global scale. Below are a few snippets…
