Optimization solution improved efficiency, reduced delivery times and reduced carbon footprint
FICO (NYSE: FICO):
Artelys, an independent company specializing in numerical optimization, modeling, and decision support, has used FICO optimization technology to build a solution that optimizes post-production activity in Toyota Motor Europe's vehicle distribution hubs, organizing tens of thousands of operations on thousands of vehicles a day. The manual scheduling that used to take three hours per day for each hub is now done in 20 minutes.
A customer buying a vehicle from a Toyota retailer can add numerous options to a Toyota vehicle such as a navigation system, a towing bar or a parking assist system. To minimize delivery time, the solution has increased the efficiency of the distribution hubs of Toyota Motor Europe, ensured satisfactory delivery time to customers, and reduced the carbon footprint of vehicle logistics operations.
"The flexibility of FICO Xpress and Artelys Kalis was key to address the very specific scheduling needs of Toyota's workshops," said Nicolas Omont, VP Operations at Artelys.
More information: https://www.fico.com/en/products/fico-xpress-optimization and https://www.artelys.com/solvers/xpress/.
At the heart of Toyota Motor Europe's supply chain are seven strategically located vehicle distribution hubs that handle both the European-built models and those shipped to Europe from overseas. These hubs ensure all vehicles get to their customers on time, performing final installations on the vehicles and a final inspection before shipping the vehicles to their retailer. Achieving on-time delivery while reducing lead times and CO2 emissions is critical.
The Artelys solution optimizes the work plan at each hub, maximizing the number of tasks that can be performed considering many technical and operational constraints. These constraints vary widely, from restricting vehicle movements within the facility to ensuring compliance with legal working hours for the team.
"It is particularly hard to design applications able to efficiently manage such heterogeneous constraints and objectives and prioritize them," said Omont. "In addition, the software is able to manage optional flexibility by enabling potential overtime to finish highly prioritized tasks or diversify crews working on difficult tasks."
User acceptance was also essential. Artelys developed the solution to show planners that they wouldn't lose flexibility in their way of working, and they wouldn't have a black box providing plans without being able to understand them. Planners can analyse the application output and understand differences with their current way of working.
The Toyota Motor Europe solution must solve the planning every day in a few minutes to allow sufficient time for the planners to validate it. In addition, it can re-optimize on the fly, based on end-user manual amendments.
"Thanks to Constraint Programming, the complex optimization problems are solved with the reliability and consistency with no room for failure," concluded Omont. "We use advanced features of FICO Xpress to implement several heuristics. They provide distinct solutions among which the best one is selected."
Strong Partnership with FICO
"Artelys has a strong partnership with FICO, having worked together for more than 15 years," said Omont. "The solution we created for Toyota relies on FICO Xpress Optimization, as the problem is modelled with Xpress Mosel language and solved with Artelys Kalis, which is fully integrated into FICO Xpress. Artelys' expertise in mathematical optimization applied to supply chain has enabled FICO to consolidate its position as one of the leading optimization solvers for supply chain applications in Europe."
"This kind of optimization will only gain in importance as manufacturers worldwide look to reduce their carbon footprint while maximizing performance," said Alexandre Graff, vice president of Global Partners Alliances at FICO. "Artelys has demonstrated with this project and others the massive potential of using FICO optimization to solve incredibly challenging supply chain problems."
About Artelys
Founded in 2000 in Paris, Artelys is an independent company specializing in numerical optimization, modelling and decision support. Artelys activities cover software edition and consulting services in optimization, data science and artificial intelligence. The company provides off-the-shelf software such as the Artelys Crystal suite or numerical optimization solvers and custom software solutions to tackle specific business problems. www.artelys.com/
About FICO
FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 200 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, insurance, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 100 countries do everything from protecting 4 billion payment cards from fraud, to improving financial inclusion, to increasing supply chain resiliency. The FICO® Score, used by 90% of top US lenders, is the standard measure of consumer credit risk in the US and other countries, improving risk management, credit access and transparency. Learn more at www.fico.com.
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