As a result, the firm believes that the combination of Slim software and Xpress-MP will allow companies to model and optimise their supply chain networks faster, more accurately and with better bottom line results than ever before.
Supply chain software is increasingly being installed by manufacturers to achieve significant financial and performance benefits in supply chain management, logistics and asset management.
While traditionally manufacturing was about producing one or a narrow range of products on a make-to-stock basis, enterprises today need advanced planning and scheduling because customers are demanding new and diverse products.
Slim software has been programmed specifically to model large, complex supply chain networks. The dimensions and complexity of these network models require cutting-edge solver technology to optimise them efficiently, and this, says the company, is where Xpress-MP comes in.
Xpress-MP, developed by Dash Optimization, utilises proprietary algorithms and ultra-efficient sparse matrix handling to allow it to solve the largest problems in record time.
"We believe that Slim Technologies has now matched best-of-breed solver technology with best-of-breed supply chain design software," said Dan Sobbott, Slim Technologies business development vice president.
"When we benchmarked Xpress-MP against our previous solver technology, we not only saw run times that were 6 to 15 times faster with Xpress-MP, but also we saw better quality solutions. This is a very exciting development for SLIM Technologies, and, more importantly, for our clients.
"This will significantly improve our clients' optimisation processes and the value of their optimisation solutions."
According to Slim Technologies president Jeremy Shapiro, sophisticated optimisation models are necessary and desirable to thoroughly analyse complex supply chain planning problems. He argues that Xpress-MP has the algorithmic number-crunching power to rapidly and consistently extract optimal or very-near optimal solutions to such models.
"This means that Slim users can quickly create, validate and apply optimisation models to the study of their strategic and tactical supply chain plans," he said.
Alan Dormer, director of Dash Optimization said: "We are delighted that Slim Technologies has obtained such excellent results on such challenging problems. Xpress-MP is the optimisation component of choice for supply chain software products and applications and this further strengthens its position.
"Dash is committed to superior technical support and year on year performance improvements, and we look forward to a long and successful partnership".
The move towards integrating supply chain software within multinational operations illustrates the degree to which the food industry has become a truly globalised industry, and the popularity of supply chain solutions such as Slim underlines a sea change in processing methods.
Manufacturers today need advanced planning and scheduling because customers are demanding new and diverse products.
On top of this, the pressure to cut inventory to free up capital still exists. The deployment of advanced planning and scheduling tools has therefore become a priority issue for enterprises that produce or want to produce on a make-to-order or assemble-to-order basis and cut inventory levels.
And of course, legislation has been a significant driver. The recent US Bioterrorism Act and forthcoming EU legislation on traceability have added to the pressure on manufacturers to get their house in order and be able to trace products right through the chain.