AIMMS

AIMMS is a prescriptive analytics software company with offices in the Netherlands, United States, China and Singapore. AIMMS has two main product offerings that provide modeling and optimization capabilities across a variety of industries. The AIMMS Prescriptive Analytics Platform is a tool for those with an Operations Research or Analytics background. It offers unlimited flexibility to develop optimization-based applications and deploy them to business users. AIMMS SC Navigator, launched in 2017, is built on the AIMMS Prescriptive Analytics Platform and provides configurable Apps for supply chain teams. SC Navigator provides supply chain analytics to individuals without a technical or analytics background so they can get the same benefits from sophisticated analytics without needing to code or model.

AIMMS
Designed by Johannes J. Bisschop
Marcel Roelofs
Developer AIMMS B.V. (formerly named Paragon Decision Technology B.V.[1])
Website AIMMS home page

History

AIMMS B.V. was founded in 1989 by noted mathematician Johannes Bisschop under the name of Paragon Decision Technology. His vision was to make optimization more approachable by building models rather than programming. In Bisschop’s view, modeling was able to build the bridge between the people who had problems and the people helping them solve those problems.

AIMMS (an acronym for "Advanced Interactive Multidimensional Modeling System") began as a software system designed for modeling and solving large-scale optimization and scheduling-type problems.[2][3]

AIMMS is considered to be one of the five most important algebraic modeling languages and the creator (Johannes J. Bisschop) has been awarded with INFORMS Impact Prize for his work in this language.[4]

In 2003, AIMMS was acquired by a small private equity firm who saw the potential value of mathematics to business. This led to the creation of a partnership program, further technical investment and the evolution of the platform. In 2011, the company launched AIMMS PRO, a way to deploy applications to end-users who don't have a technical background. This was quickly followed by the ability to publish and customize applications using a browser so that decision support applications are available on any device. These innovations led to rapid customer adoption and growth for the company. In 2017, AIMMS was recognized as a top B2B technology in the Netherlands.[5] and was named one of the fastest growing companies in the Netherlands for the second consecutive year.[6]

AIMMS SC Navigator Platform

In 2017, the product management team did a listening tour with supply chain executives. This, along with the growing interest in embedded advanced analytics for supply chain management, generated the initial idea for the AIMMS SC Navigator Platform and the democratization of supply chain analytics. SC Navigator consists of ready-made applications that are easily configurable to put supply chain analytics in the hands of supply chain professionals.

AIMMS SC Navigator launched in October, 2017 with three initial cloud-based Apps: Supply Chain Network Design, Sales & Operations Planning and Data Navigator. In 2018 two additional applications were rolled out - Center of Gravity and Product Lifecycle. Additional applications are rolling out every quarter.

AIMMS Prescriptive Analytics Platform

The AIMMS Prescriptive Analytics Platform consists of an algebraic modeling language, an integrated development environment for both editing models and creating a graphical user interface around these models, and a graphical end-user environment.[7] AIMMS is linked to multiple solvers through the AIMMS Open Solver Interface.[8] Supported solvers include CPLEX, MOSEK, CBC, Conopt, MINOS, IPOPT, SNOPT, KNITRO and CP Optimizer.

AIMMS features a mixture of declarative and imperative programming styles. Formulation of optimization models takes place through declarative language elements such as sets and indices, as well as scalar and multidimensional parameters, variables and constraints, which are common to all algebraic modeling languages, and allow for a concise description of most problems in the domain of mathematical optimization. Units of measurement are natively supported in the language, and compile- and runtime unit analysis may be employed to detect modeling errors.

Procedures and control flow statements are available in AIMMS for

  • the exchange of data with external data sources such as spreadsheets, databases, XML and text files
  • data pre- and post-processing tasks around optimization models
  • user interface event handling
  • the construction of hybrid algorithms for problem types for which no direct efficient solvers are available.

To support the re-use of common modeling components, AIMMS allows modelers to organize their model in user model libraries.

AIMMS supports a wide range of mathematical optimization problem types:

Uncertainty can be taken into account in deterministic linear and mixed integer optimization models in AIMMS through the specification of additional attributes, such that stochastic or robust optimization techniques can be applied alongside the existing deterministic solution techniques.

Custom hybrid and decomposition algorithms can be constructed using the GMP system library which makes available at the modeling level many of the basic building blocks used internally by the higher level solution methods present in AIMMS, matrix modification methods, as well as specialized steps for customizing solution algorithms for specific problem types.

Optimization solutions created with AIMMS can be used either as a standalone desktop application or can be embedded as a software component in other applications.

Use in industry

AIMMS Prescriptive Analytics Platform is used in a wide range of industries including retail, consumer products, healthcare, oil and chemicals, steel production and agribusiness.[9][10][11]

GE Grid uses AIMMS as the modeling and optimization engine of its energy market clearing software.[12] Together with GE Grid, AIMMS was part of the analytics team of Midwest ISO that won the Franz Edelman Award for Achievement in Operations Research and the Management Sciences of 2011 for successfully applying operations research in the Midwest ISO energy market.[13] In 2012, TNT Express, an AIMMS customer won the Franz Edleman Award for modernizing its operations and reducing its carbon footprint. [14] The AIMMS platform was also used by the Dutch Delta team to develop and implement a new method for calculating the most efficient levels of flood protection for the Netherlands and won the Edelman prize in 2013[15].


See also

References

  1. ↑ "We are moving forward, from now on you can call us AIMMS", "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-10-29. Retrieved 2013-10-23.
  2. ↑ Kallrath, Joseph (2004). Modeling Languages in Mathematical Optimization. Kluwer Academic Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4020-7547-6.
  3. ↑ Roelofs, Marcel (2010). AIMMS Language Reference (PDF). lulu.com. ISBN 978-0-557-42456-6.
  4. ↑ "{title}". Archived from the original on 2013-10-22. Retrieved 2013-10-22.
  5. ↑ "The State of the Netherland's B2B Tech Scene in 2017". G2 Crowd. 2017-12-14. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  6. ↑ "AIMMS :: AIMMS named one of the fastest growing companies in the Netherlands for the second consecutive year". AIMMS. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  7. ↑ Roelofs, Marcel (2010). AIMMS User's Guide (PDF). lulu.com. ISBN 978-0-557-06360-4.
  8. ↑ Paragon Decision Technology (2009). "AIMMS Open Solver Interface API".
  9. ↑ Lasschuit, Winston; Thijssen, Nort (15 June 2004). "Supporting supply chain planning and scheduling decisions in the oil and chemical industry" (PDF). Computers & Chemical Engineering (Volume 28, Issues 6-7, FOCAPO 2003 Special issue): 863–870. doi:10.1016/j.compchemeng.2003.09.026. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 September 2011.
  10. ↑ "Integration and Optimisation of Crude Planning and Scheduling in the Hydrocarbon Supply Chain" (Press release). Shell Global Solutions. January 17, 2011.
  11. ↑ Medeiros Milanez, Eduardo (April 2010). "25 years of O.R. in Brazil". OR/MS Today.
  12. ↑ Streiffert, D.; Philbrick, R.; Ott, A. (August 1, 2005). "A mixed integer programming solution for market clearing and reliability analysis" (PDF). Power Engineering Society General Meeting, 2005. IEEE. pp. 2724–2731 Vol. 3. doi:10.1109/PES.2005.1489108. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 13, 2011.
  13. ↑ "Midwest ISO Wins INFORMS Edelman Award" (Press release). INFORMS. April 11, 2011.
  14. ↑ INFORMS. "TNT Express Wins 2012 INFORMS Edelman Award, Super Bowl of Analytics, Operations Research". INFORMS. Retrieved 2018-04-12.
  15. ↑ INFORMS. "Dutch Delta team earns Edelman". INFORMS. Retrieved 2018-04-12.


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