SAS is adding features to its business intelligence product known as SAS/OR in an attempt to help users automate decisions and optimize business practices.
The operations research (OR) product integrates data across an enterprise and now includes what SAS calls “mixed integer linear programming,” or MILP.
“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.”
OR focuses on supply chain management and optimization, resource allocation and management, production and inventory planning, and other uses such as staffing and training allocations.
According to the SAS Web site, SAS/OR aims to improve “optimization, project management, scheduling, simulation and decision analysis techniques.” As a result, users can “identify the actions that will produce the best results, while operating within resource limitations and tight restrictions,” SAS added.
