How can top managers analyze the complete production process of their company while at the same time at top speed simulate the profit effect of current changes in raw material prices, inflation rates, exchange rates and personnel costs? Scientists at Hasso Plattner Institute demonstrate at CeBIT (Hall 9, Stand D44) how easily this can be done with the prototype of their newly developed software system.
They demonstrate this in staged sessions in an office environment especially designed for decision makers. The Potsdam computer scientists have developed the financial solution with the real but altered data of a consumer products manufacturer from a western industrial country. The HPI cutting-edge research lab in Potsdam has been technically equipped for the analysis, using the latest high-performance computers with co-processors with several hundred additional cores. In the "HPI Future SOC Lab" the computer scientists can now also calculate, for example, how providers of baked goods in grocery stores should be supplied with dough so that as little as possible is thrown away at the end of the day. Another topic of interest is how the sale of products often sold together can be improved. Questions are answered with the help of a technology researched and co-developed at HPI – In- memory data management. The Potsdam HPI scientists have, for example, analyzed altogether 4 billion point-of-sale pieces of data from the branches of a German retail sales chain in seconds to address the questions: What products are sold when, where, in what type of weather and in the context of what actions? What else does the person buy besides the bag of potato chips he puts in his shopping cart on a late Friday afternoon? On the basis of such targeted analysis, marketing campaigns can be planned successfully.
