Milano, 9 luglio - To help organizations create and implement action plans for growth and productivity, SAS, the leader in business intelligence announced major enhancements to SAS/OR^®. Eliminating guesswork, SAS/OR enables a scientific, logical and guided approach to optimizing business practices. It automates what were once time-consuming decisions by integrating massive amounts of data to surface insights that would otherwise remain hidden. This optimization benefits organizations, businesses and governments using SAS worldwide.

Enhancements in this July 2007 SAS/OR release build upon several March 2007 improvements. Most significant, the new release delivers Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) – which is critically acclaimed in the optimization community. These MILP advances add structure and adaptability to assist leaders challenged by complex decisions in today's high-pressure, fast-paced world. Now the world’s toughest operations research problems can be solved with more accuracy.

“In the face of reduced budgets and limited resources, SAS/OR helps improve operations without compromising effectiveness,” said Mary Grace Crissey, Analytics Product Marketing Manager at SAS. “SAS responded to customer demand with MILP. It eliminates repetitive trial-and-error approaches and cuts the time to intelligence. The new release also provides expanded options for specifying the problem-solution method. By defining the problem at this more granular level, SAS/OR users are improving efficiency in ways other approaches don’t allow.”

Today’s operations research users streamline operations in a wide range of functions, including:

• Supply chain management and optimization.
• Resource allocation and management.
• Production and inventory planning.
• Product mix and planning.
• Staffing and training allocations.
• Distribution, routing, scheduling and traffic flow.
• Capital budgeting, asset allocation and portfolio selection.

For example, the Air Force Personnel Center Analysis Branch uses SAS/OR to automate scheduling of training so new airmen are trained as soon as possible. The branch also uses SAS/OR to assign new airmen to the best-fitting job for their skills and desires.