Our offer
Algorithm design
IROI mission is to operate in Information Technology (IT) field by
providing software solutions and services to manufacturing companies
and to software vendors in the market of IT solutions for
manufacturing industry.
IROI's algorithms incorporate innovative techniques for
combinatorial optimization properly engineered and extended to
provide high performance with high computational efficiency when
facing large-size problems as those characterizing industrial
manufacturing production. IROI's algorithms are based both on
metaheuristic methods and on mathematical programming, thus they are
able to analyze in reduced computation times a very large number of
alternative solutions while maintaining a high level of flexibility
in problem definition.
Production optimization
Manufacturing and logistics companies more and more show the need to
reorganize their production processes, paying high attention to the
optimization of key process stages. The Italian and foreign market
of producers of management software solutions for manufacturing and
logistics companies often is not able to offer quality decision
support algorithms based optimization methods and models. IROI's
research team developed over time the capability to model complex
decision problems, with particular reference to manufacturing, as
well as new optimization methods for their solution.
Planning
Planning aims at defining a master schedule
(eventually aggregated) on a medium-long time horizon. It determines the quantities of
products to manufacture in the different production periods (time
buckets) and the workload for aggregate production resources. In
certain contexts this optimization process is extended to
semi-finished products and the sub-lines. The optimization process
identifies the master schedule, from which the supply plan is
determined, taking into account the fulfillment of demand (customer
orders or forecast) and a wide set of constraints for decision
variables. As an example, such constraints are imposed on productive
capacities, compatibility between the lines/work centers and
products, production cycles and routing, reference production rates
and so on.
Case study (automotive industry): the management of company aims at
producing at a constant target production rate (in order to avoid
reconfiguration of production lines), satisfying at the best the
demand for a finished product and taking into account the shortage
of critical materials. IROI aims to operate in the field of
Information Technology (IT) by providing software solutions and
services to companies in the manufacturing sector or software
vendors in the market of such solutions.
Scheduling
Scheduling defines the detailed allocation of production activities
on lines/work centers, specifying both the sequence with which
different activities should be carried out and the time instants at
which they should begin. The algorithms developed by IROI are able
to handle constraints and objectives of various kinds, such as: the
presence of setup times; periods of unavailability of the machines;
the possibility or not to pause the work before shift changes or
closure periods and resume it afterward; the capability to vary
production efficiency as a function of the additional resources
allocated (e.g., staff); the presence of precedence constraints
between activities in the cycles of production with minimum and
maximum waiting times, etc..
Case study (industrial components): the sequencing of production
stages with the objective of minimizing setup times without
violating the delivery dates and considering the plant calendar and
the use of secondary resources.
IROI has also developed a software tool to support manufacturing scheduling:
VisualGantt
Inventory optimization
IROI developed an optimizer based on stochastic mathematical
programming which determines the optimal mix of stocks of materials
taking into account cost factors and the level of service to
customers.
This tool operates on the basis of a prediction model of demand that
takes into account reliability and seasonality of time series.
This kind of optimizer is essential in the case of make-to-stock
production to mitigate costs due to uncertainty in the estimates
without compromising customer service.
Case study (automotive industry): Inventory management of spare
parts with constraints on the minimum level of customer
satisfaction, measured as fill rate (ratio of received orders and
fulfilled orders) for groups of parts.
Integration of algorithms with management systems
IROI offers to the software vendors its ability to integrate
advanced optimization modules into their management system packages.
For this reason IROI products are open solutions, easily customizable
for different vertical contexts and according to trade agreements
that rule the degree of customization.