A new standard in the commercial air cargo market

November 12, 2014/0 Comments/in News /by Ash Nelson

How CLIVE is helping DHL set a new standard in the commercial air cargo market.

Given the complexity inherent in global airfreight booking and allocation systems the notion that Microsoft Excel is widely used as the default decision making support tool is nothing short of surprising. However this was the case when DHL engaged CLIVE with an objective of finding a better way to manage their global network.

The current December issue of Airline Cargo Management titled ‘When DHL met CLIVE’ discusses the leap forward taken by DHL from a reliance on an excel based tool to implementing advanced technology through CLIVE’s customised software-as-a- service (SAAS) application.

CLIVE worked with a unit of DHL Aviation, Air Capacity Sales (ACS), which sells the airline’s spare capacity to forwarders, to help smooth-out the imbalances that typically occur within major cargo airlines. In the article, Paul Ennis, managing director of ACS, had previously used excel and found; “The accuracy of the information was inadequate and there was no real-time visibility on capacity allocation, especially taking into account that DHL Aviation has such a complex network.”

“It’s an amazing leap forward” – Ennis

Ennis goes on to explain that his customers tend to want fixed or agreed allocations on various sectors. “We have lots of demand for pre-allocated capacity. We didn’t have a system before – we used an Excel sheet to manage allocations, so we were interested in CLIVE. It’s an amazing leap forward.”

CLIVE’s software services combine in-depth knowledge of the air cargo industry with an intuitive user experience

Commercial decision making in air cargo is complex and made even more so when confronted with volatile markets, fragmented processes, legacy technology and scattered information. The article quotes CLIVE’s tagline, which is ‘bringing humanised technology to the air cargo domain’. It is the company’s conviction that order and simplicity are the best response to the complexity surrounding commercial decision-making in air cargo.

To support three key management processes; allocation, demand forecasting and operations, CLIVE built separate applications for distinct processes; which allowed DHL to present its clients only with the information they need, keeping the applications clutter free.

The new insights provided by this service allowed DHL to generate additional value from their global air cargo network.

In the article Ennis confirmed that CLIVE gives ACS more accuracy and efficiency across the global network. “Running a network involves multiple sectors which we can put in a single view, allowing us to tell the customer immediately what the options are. If they require capacity we can give an instantaneous answer. The real benefits are for the customer. It’s much more accurate, clean and neat,” Ennis said.

“CLIVE gives ACS more accuracy and efficiency across the global network” – Ennis

One unexpected benefit was the way it affected the team, he adds. “People feel more empowered to engage with customers as we have a clearer view of what is going on. You never get a second chance to fill an aircraft, and now we can talk facts and figures with customers. “We learned things – it forced us to go into more detail, made us look at our business more closely.”

About CLIVE

CLIVE provides humanized technology to the air cargo industry. Commercial decision making in air cargo is complex and CLIVE’s goal is to add order to this complexity by developing easy to use, customised applications from scratch, making practical use of highly advanced mathematics.

CLIVE is part of the Biarri Group of Companies (Biarri Optimisation, Biarri Networks, and Render Networks), that work to provide accessible optimisation to all businesses.

Analytics for a Competitive Advantage

November 10, 2014/0 Comments/in Analytics, Blog /by Ash Nelson

Are you serious about using analytics for a competitive advantage?

Based on a global executive survey with 2,000+ respondents and interviews with more than thirty executives, MIT Sloan Management Review and SAS Institute Inc. report that analytics has become a common path to business value and through proper use, businesses can drive analytics for a competitive advantage.

Companies that incorporate analytics into their culture are finding success in the new digital era

The report discusses how organisations are now being challenged to step up their use of analytics, whether they are just getting started or are seasoned practitioners. The implications for industry competition are coming into focus—companies that incorporate analytics into their culture are finding success in the new digital era.

In new research released by MIT Sloan Management Review and SAS managers surveyed, report that an analytics culture is the driving factor in achieving competitive advantage from data and analytics, more important than any of the other capabilities measured in the study.

Companies must continuously innovate with analytics to maintain the edge

The new report, “The Analytics Mandate,” based on results from a global survey of more than 2,000 business executives and personal interviews with over 30 senior managers, also finds that companies must continuously innovate with analytics to maintain the edge it affords.

“We found that in companies with a strong analytics culture, decision-making norms include the use of analytics, even if the results challenge views held by senior management,” said David Kiron, executive editor for MIT Sloan Management Review. “This differentiates those companies from others, where often management experience overrides insights from data.”

The research also indicates that companies with a top-down mandate for fact-driven decision making are experiencing gains with analytics to a far greater extent than other organizations. Executive support, leading by example and evangelizing “a lot of little wins” helps to both push and pull employees towards an analytics culture.

This study, now in its fourth year, suggests that analytics is no longer a new path to value; it’s a common one. Access to useful information continues to increase, and the vast majority of respondents are investing in their analytical capabilities to leverage their data.

Biarri helps to turn your data into a competitive advantage

Biarri can help to take a repository of data and knowledge and turn it into a greater competitive advantage for your business. By taking a snapshot of your historical data, we can create custom software within 90 days which gives you the power to make better, data driven decisions. We develop bespoke solutions to Advanced Planning and Scheduling, Workforce Management, Supply Chain Optimisation and Business Analytics problems, across multiple Industries and value chains.

Contact us today to see how we can help turn your data into a competitive advantage!

An optimised approach to Coal Train Crew Scheduling

October 28, 2014/0 Comments/in Blog, Business, Operations Research, Rail /by Ash Nelson

Rail is frequently used for moving coal between mines and ports, and interactions between train and crewing requirements can create highly complex problems.

Recently Matt Herbert, an optimisation consultant at Biarri Commercial Mathematics was invited to present an approach to Coal Train Crew Scheduling at the Queensland University of Technology, hosted by ASOR.

Matt provided insights into the problems many mining and rail companies face when scheduling their crews. His formulation considered many aspects of the real world problem, including restricting the number of crew changes on each service, and variable start times for crews.

This approach is able to produce weekly crew assignments with high utilisation in run times of around an hour, down from existing manual methods requiring a day or more.

Have a look at Matt’s Presentation

Helping students deliver Vehicle Routing Optimisation

October 17, 2014/0 Comments/in News /by Ash Nelson

When Griffith University’s Business School asked for support developing a network optimisation case for the Applied Business Modelling course, Biarri was happy to assist.

An opportunity to teach and demonstrate state-of-the-art thinking

Robert Ogulin Lecturer and Program Director of Griffith’s Master of Supply Network Management (MSNM) identified an opportunity to “teach and demonstrate state of the art thinking” to his logistics and supply chain students. The Masters program provides students with the opportunity to develop an understanding of effective and sustainable management of global sourcing and international business, and Ogulin recognised the importance of ensuring that students get practical experience with advanced supply chain and optimisation tools.

“It is becoming increasingly clear to me that logistics and supply chain students (and business students in general) require more exposure to related IT” Ogulin said.

The course required access to advanced logistics and supply chain software that had been proven in the rigours of a commercial setting. Biarri’s expertise in the development of easy to use, powerful optimisation solutions across a range of commercial applications and industry sectors proved a good fit with Griffith University’s high performance expectations. Biarri’s Vehicle Routing Optimisation (VRO) tool could accommodate a wide variety of constraints and scenarios, from basic functionality for a homogeneous fleet and fixed load/unload times, to more complex issues such as multi-day workload balancing or managing multiple depots and tours.

Biarri’s VRO helped Schweppes Australia achieve great results with the development of a comprehensive vehicle routing solution, customised to Schweppes’ unique requirements. This application was designed to optimise routes based on their customers’ limited delivery windows while still meeting rigorous customer service level agreements. The VRO tool helped Schweppes achieve a 10% reduction in total fleet kilometres, saving the business thousands of unnecessary kilometers and reduced overall environmental impact via reduced fuel and truck usage.

This made Biarri’s VRO a perfect choice for the program, allowing students to test challenging scenarios and deliver optimised results within real-world constraints. A total of 40 students from the Undergraduate BBUS (Logistics and Supply Network Management) and Master of Supply Network Management courses were offered free on-line access to the VRO software across a two week period and by all accounts the project proved to be a success.

“The tool provided an easy to use but powerful learning environment. The scenarios that (Biarri) provided were perfect to get the students to think through the implications of changing constraints or cost parameters”

Is your decision making based on Analytics or Gut feeling?

September 25, 2014/2 Comments/in Blog, Business /by Ash Nelson

Despite the proliferation of data and the constant drive to adopt innovation to achieve competitive differentiation; many businesses continue to make critical business decisions that are a product of intuition and haste rather than fact and rigor.

40% of major decisions are still based on your Manager’s gut feeling

The question as to why companies continue to rely on ‘best-guesses’, despite the availability of advanced business analytics, quantitative models and optimisation methods is confounding. Using data and quantitative analysis to support decision making, removes ambiguity and improves speed and accuracy. Decision making is more likely to be correct and the process has more rigor due to the application of the scientific method.

Biarri Applied Mathematics 2014

September 24, 2014/0 Comments/in News /by Ash Nelson

Biarri will hold its 2nd Biarri Applied Mathematics (BAM) Conference at RMIT, Melbourne, over two days from the 25th to the 26th November. The BAM Conference is a free event being co-hosted with RMIT and supported by Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI). The theme of this year’s event is “Maths Everywhere”, with speakers from a wide range of disciplines and organizations highlighting the breadth of places where the mathematical sciences are making a difference.

Biarri’s CTO and conference co-chair Andrew Grenfell, says “We are excited to be co-hosting the event again this year. It is a great opportunity to highlight the crucial role that mathematics plays in the real world and to demonstrate the diverse career paths that mathematics can offer.” This year’s presenters will cover a range of topics from the burgeoning analytics sphere to bioinformatics, telecommunication network design, disaster modelling, nature conservation, sport and finance. The event promises to showcase mathematical tools and techniques used to solve problems in the real world, through case studies and in-depth talks.

The recent release of the Chief Scientist’s report ‘Australia 2025: Smart Science – Mathematics’ highlighted the positive impact Mathematics can have in creating new and better Australian industries. The report noted the powerful role Mathematics can play in societies obsessed with progress and aspiring to greater technological sophistication. However, concerns remain over mathematics and science education in Australia, particularly declining school and university enrolments, and Australia’s declining attainment relative to other countries. “We need to address the decline in the number of students completing later year university level mathematics studies as this has the potential to reduce Australia’s future capacity for innovation and international competitiveness. It is important that companies like ours take an active role in building greater links between mathematics and business, fostering emerging talent and helping to promote mathematics as an exciting career option “, Grenfell said.

Biarri Applied Mathematics (BAM) conference will be at RMIT, Melbourne, over two days from the 25th to the 26th November. BamConf 2014 is a free event being co-hosted with RMIT and supported by Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI).

Visit www.bamconf.com for more information

Applying Mathematics to Meat Processing

September 12, 2014/0 Comments/in News /by Ash Nelson

Biarri has developed unique cloud-based meat processing software that has been released in Australia for use by companies within the meat industry to optimise production, reduce waste and boost revenue.

One of the world’s largest processors and exporters of lamb and mutton, Alliance Group, approached Biarri in 2013 to develop a new meat processing technology for exclusive use by the group to boost business operations in New Zealand.

The technology was able to help Alliance make significant savings in operating costs by using a software model to maximise their products and revenue yields. The technology has been customised for use within the Australian meat processing industry and can be modified to accommodate a diverse range of requirements including both Beef and Lamb.

The software uses highly complex mathematical algorithms to improve decision making. The software enables meat processors to make important operational decisions quickly, ensuring all critical variables are considered for each production run. Using data and quantitative analysis removes ambiguity and improves speed and accuracy.

Despite its importance, key operational decision making is often based on gut-feel and subjectivity. The Meat Processing Optimiser (MPO) software determines the best cut strategy that maximises carcass yield according to the meat processors inputs and the highly efficient algorithms do the work in seconds; ensuring operational decisions are consistent and optimised every time. Decisions are more likely to be correct and the process has more rigor due to the application of the scientific method.

The Meat industry has in recent times faced very challenging operating conditions. An anticipated reduction of available livestock for slaughtering due to drought, rebuilding the national herd and the continued build-up of the live trade, will negatively impact profits and result in a tightening of budgets. Biarri believe their new technology can help boost the bottom line for processors regardless of production volumes or revenues and thereby contribute to the competitiveness of the whole value chain.

Tom Forbes, Biarri CEO said, “We are excited to offer our unique technology to the Australian market, and are confident, after seeing Alliance Group’s results, that the MPO will benefit operators by reducing costs and increasing revenue within the Australian meat processing industry.”

“Biarri is an IT company committed to unlocking the power of mathematics for all businesses to benefit operations. While the meat processing industry is not generally associated with business analytics, quantitative models and optimisation tools, the MPO is set to change operational decision making within the industry.”

“Meat processing in Australia is big business, with Australian’s consuming on average 46.5 kilograms of red meat each year, we decided there was definitely a requirement to develop a specific technology to streamline processes within the meat processing industry to maximise yields, boost revenue and reduce waste wherever possible.”

Head over to the Meat Processing Optimiser page for more information

2 years at Biarri

July 14, 2014/1 Comment/in Blog, Other /by Ash Nelson

LinkedIn recently reminded me about my 2-year anniversary at Biarri. It feels like longer (a colleague has called it “Biarri time-dilation”), and I think that is a good thing.

In my previous job with an multinational corporate, I had a comfortable position running a great development and support team essentially for a single, well-earning COTS product. The product has an international client base, and that meant I scored a few business class trips each year to meet with generally happy customers. Needless to say, it was pretty sweet for a number of years, and again, comfortable.

But as the years passed, the software was ageing along with its core technologies. I had worked on the large code base for so long, I can still recall its structure. I wasn’t learning anything new – it was time to move on.

I’d worked with a few guys that had left the company for various reasons, and increasingly frequently I would hear of “Biarri” – a startup company that was based on accessible mathematics delivered in SaaS fashion. Biarri was gaining momentum, and the more I heard about the kind of projects and people involved, the more keen I was to look into a possible move away from my comfortable office.

I met with one of the Biarri founders, Joe Forbes, over coffee at his favourite cafe (in what we started calling his “coffice”). I liked what I heard – it seemed the Biarri guys had learned from the development mistakes we often see in software development in a corporate culture (“remember the Alamo”, Joe often says). Software was stripped back to the essentials, with the aim to have interaction design done first rather than as an afterthought (or worse still, by developers!). Interfacing with other systems was somewhat bypassed – using simple formats (e.g. CSV) to move data between systems. A mathematical approach was taken to solving each problem, by formulating each engine in a formal way to exploit the “power of maths”. The company was keeping its IT footprint as light as possible through the use of remotely hosted / cloud based computing resources, and had a strong focus on keeping costs low (I had always found the waste, and lack of care about it, frustrating within a corporate). They were using new web-app based technologies, and finally, they were growing! I jumped ship.

My probation period was hard work. Myself and another newbie – our COO George – were placed on a project aiming to model a redesign of a national parcel network, and some of the major Biarri players were on a well earned spate of leave. George took the reigns, and I was back in the developers chair, trying to cover ground as quickly as possible. My learning of “new stuff” started from that first week, and pretty much hasn’t abated since. As the project wore on, I got to team-lead a few of the more “junior” developers – however Joe and Ash are exceptionally good at hiring very clever people – not much leading was required. By the end of the project I had been reasonably well deprogrammed from my old corporate culture (it isn’t your job title that makes you in Biarri – its how you perform), I’d worked on the tech. stack from back to front, and was ready for the next challenge.

Since then, I’ve worked on a number of quite different scheduling optimisation software projects. Along the way I’ve learned about linear and mixed integer programming in the “real world” (not just on toy problems), and how the real difficulty can lie in the customised algorithms which feed just enough of a problem into commercial solvers without killing solve time. I’ve seen classic statistical, AI and dynamic programming techniques applied to problems as diverse as hub selection, vehicle routing, fibre network design, demand forecasting and resource allocation. I’ve learned how agent-based approaches can be used in the field of optimisation as well as simulation, and I’ve seen the company mature its software development processes to keep the machine working at the top speed it requires (where “agile” can also mean “predictable”).

As Biarri has rapidly grown over the last few years, so has the code base. It’s great to know refactoring isn’t a dirty word at Biarri. I think the key to keeping Biarri agile will be to avoid falling into the trap of developing large “in house” libraries, and not being afraid to throw away code – that should set us up to be able to refresh the “tech. stack” regularly (keeping us ready to use leading edge technology, not locking us into past decisions).

Just like any workplace, the people make or break the culture. Joe has a “hire slow, fire fast” policy, and this has made for a great place to work. It’s a pretty flat structure, and I hope it stays that way – sometimes someone has to be the boss, but everyone needs to be able and willing to get their hands dirty when required.

I can’t say I’m always “comfortable” at Biarri, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Looking forward to the next 2 years.

Dynamic scheduling in the face of uncertainty

June 4, 2014/1 Comment/in Blog, Mathematics, Operations Research, Rail /by Dave Scerri

Many businesses operate in uncertain environments, at the mercy of breakdowns, human error, traffic or the weather. The traditional approach is to build slack into a schedule, to survive some expected level of uncertainty, and then to hope this schedule can be executed in spite of whatever unforeseen events actually occur. In instances where the schedule cannot be implemented as expected, operational decisions are made to try to meet the business goals as much as possible. Under complexity and time pressure, decision makers must often resort to making short term, locally focused decisions without the time or tools to consider implications downstream.

In this blog post, optimisation consultant Dave Scerri describes how recent algorithmic advances and smart tools have enabled the best of both worlds: an operational scheduling approach that responds to changing circumstances while focusing on system wide efficiency.

Dealing with operational uncertainty is one of the biggest challenges facing many businesses today. The most well thought out plans and schedules rarely survive contact with the real world, and the consequences are often a loss of productivity and overall efficiency. Businesses should be endeavouring to make the best decision at any point in time given the current circumstances and the best information available to them. Operational scheduling, when done right, can allow businesses to make quality, timely decisions, maximising their productivity in the face of uncertainty.

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry

– Robert Burns

COTS vs Bespoke

May 14, 2014/0 Comments/in Blog, Business /by Ash Nelson

COTS (commercial off the shelf) puts the bars around accessible Mathematics: leads to crying babies

Our philosophy is to make the power of mathematics accessible. Why? Because we think it isn’t currently very accessible, this limits the number of people who can use it to get value and reduces the value derived by those who do use it, and that’s a crying shame in a world that desperately needs efficiency.

We have all seen it multiple times in multiple organisations. It’s the hard to use (probably ugly), not really fit for purpose (lots of workarounds), complicated IT (n tier, client/server, VM, Citrix, Oracle thing) approach to providing optimisation software.

So how did it come into being? Here’s how I see it:

“I’m unique; give me your shrink wrapped product!” – and other amusing procurement stories

Let’s assume requirements are done, I’ll save organisational scope bloat for another time. The next question is build or buy? How will we best get something that is a close match to need/requirements?

So a market search ensues only to discover that the requirements are pretty unique. So a custom/bespoke solution is required! That makes sense but most organisations quickly discover that bespoke = expensive (time and money), just like buying a tailor made suit is more expensive than buying off the rack.

It’s for this reason that hard core mathematics/optimisation solutions have mainly been consumed by capital intensive industries where spending a few million to save tens or hundreds of millions made the business case stack up.

Therefore organisations often seek a COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) solution (often after an expensive run in with a bespoke approach), with the expectation that if they specify what they need and buy something “off the shelf” that fits then it should be low risk (time and money). It appears to be quite an entrenched view with Australian CIOs, and in some cases is justified, particularly in back office functions that don’t offer opportunity for differentiation. A point Wesfarmers Insurance CIO David Hackshall and DoD CIO Peter Lawrence make in an article by Brian Corrigan on itnews.com.au titled “How COTS became Australia’s default software setting”.

In the world of mathematics, optimisation and advanced planning and scheduling it would be a very rare occasion with a simple set of generic requirements where COTS really worked. Take one of the classical problems where mathematics are applied, vehicle routing. This is a well picked over area and sounds simple enough. Nonetheless, vendors fill niches within this niche in order to provide a match to requirements. As the Vehicle Routing survey in February 2014 issue OR/MS Today says “VR customers are different, and so are their routing needs and problems, which require flexible, innovative answers”.

Vendors react to this COTS centric procurement environment in a predictable way, and of course say they sell COTS because otherwise when they get evaluated on the inevitable RFX criteria they would fail miserably. The solution? They will (and I’ve been there) include “configuration” or “installation services” as ways to mask software development. The result? You get something that wasn’t a great fit with lots of add on development to meet your requirements. It’s hard to use, slow and doesn’t really provide the solutions you were hoping for. In many cases you end up with the worst of both worlds, the cost of bespoke but the poor fit of COTS.

As the aforementioned itnews.com.au article says “The middle ground between buying readymade software and building bespoke solutions is to customise a COTS package. Yet as many CIOs have discovered at great cost to their budgets and mental health, this can be a painful experience.”

This COTS/bespoke paradox is the problem we saw and it is what we aim to address. So what does Biarri do differently? We take the benefits of bespoke and make it cheaply and quickly. You could say we aim to provide the best of both worlds.

Do the math

How do we do it? First of all, we do the maths first! Prove you can solve the underlying problem and that’s it is worth solving before investing in the delivery mechanism. Once you know there is value in the maths, make sure people can digest it via a well-designed solution. The Biarri Workbench is our SaaS platform that allows us to very quickly develop easy to use, custom applications with unique workflows with an iterative/agile and light deployment.

Who says B2C owns good UX?

Easy to use means designed with the user in mind. In the consumer world (B2C) this is the natural order of things (thanks Apple). In the business world (B2B) this has taken a back seat, and that’s where our industrial designers come in. Working with users to really understand how they do their job and will interact with the system. Producing mock-ups/concepts and getting early feedback before a line of code is written.

So now we’ve proven the maths will provide value and designed a solution that users will love to use.

Mock up example

Rinse and Repeat

What comes next is turning this into reality quickly, cheaply and iteratively. Quickly and cheaply are thanks to the Biarri Workbench providing security, common database, existing UI components, libraries and widgets that enable a custom built application to be constructed very quickly. And “iteratively” is thanks to being web delivered which means we can provide early access to users to start providing feedback. Agile development takes on real meaning as users see the mock-ups they helped design come alive in their web browser mere weeks (or even just days) after designing them. Engagement and user buy-in are huge as feedback is provided, incorporated and delivered instantly. Australia Posts CIO Andrew Walduck understands this approach, “The number of times I’ve seen operating models where you start with requirements on one side, you dump it into operations on the other, and it fundamentally misses the point”.

Tool UI Example

It takes different strokes to move the world… yes it does

Do you remember the late 70’s early 80’s TV series “Different Strokes”? I use to love the theme song.

Everybody’s got a special kind of story
Everybody finds a way to shine,
It don’t matter that you got not alot
So what,
They’ll have theirs, and you’ll have yours, and I’ll have mine.
And together we’ll be fine….

When you start looking for your next optimisation, analytics or advanced planning and scheduling solution and your CIO/CFO says “budgets are tight and you can’t buy bespoke, you have to go COTS”, remember “it don’t matter that you got not a lot… you’ll have yours” because Biarri has a special kind of story.

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