The new venture's product line includes tools that range from increasing the power and functionality of popular spreadsheet packages such as Microsoft Excel and Quattro Pro to highly sophisticated optimizer programs designed to efficiently run large problems on high-powered computers.
To provide a broad range of choices of tools and optimizers to end users, Compass has entered into strategic partnerships with two major players in the math programming field: Frontline Systems and CPLEX Optimization. Compass is also licensed to resell and support AMPL software for model formulation. Frontline and CPLEX have independently agreed to license Compass to resell and support a set of AMPL-compatible solvers for linear programming, mixed integer programming and non-linear programming.
Institute staff, along with representatives of Digital Equipment Corp., Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Sun Microsystems will help organizations expedite the integration of UNIX workstations, PCs and mainframes for mission-critical data, client/server, and data warehousing applications.
The combination of EXSYS and LINDO provides a unique solution to real-world problems such as: LP applications delivered to end users not trained in interpreting LP results; automating frequently run LP interpretation; LPs that require interaction with other programs; LPs that have constraints which cannot be expressed numerically; LPs that need graphical interfaces; Expert systems that solve optimization problems; Integration of PC-based expert systems with a mainframe LP; Portability across environments.
The total EXSYS Professional user interface wraps around LINDO, allowing delivery of complex but usable applications. When data is needed from the user, the EXSYS user interface can ask for data with custom screens, graphics, custom programs, hypertext, or even speech and video.
Data can be obtained from direct access to SQL ODBC databases, spreadsheets, custom programs written in any language, frame-based data representations, data tables, or any computer program. The results from LINDO can be formatted with the EXSYS report generator and intelligently analyzed to produce the reports users want and need.
Under the agreement, McGraw-Hill Book Co. Europe will distribute English-language versions of Mathcad 6.0 Student Edition technical calculation and communications software, the Explorations with Mathcad series of electronic books, and Mathcad's User's Guide printed book through its book publishing channels in a range of markets outside North America.
The combination of EXSYS and LINDO provides a unique solution to real-world problems such as: LP applications delivered to end users not trained in interpreting LP results; automating frequently run LP interpretation; LPs that require interaction with other programs; LPs that have constraints which cannot be expressed numerically; LPs that need graphical interfaces; Expert systems that solve optimization problems; Integration of PC-based expert systems with a mainframe LP; Portability across environments.
The total EXSYS Professional user interface wraps around LINDO, allowing delivery of complex but usable applications. When data is needed from the user, the EXSYS user interface can ask for data with custom screens, graphics, custom programs, hypertext, or even speech and video.
Data can be obtained from direct access to SQL ODBC databases, spreadsheets, custom programs written in any language, frame-based data representations, data tables, or any computer program. The results from LINDO can be formatted with the EXSYS report generator and intelligently analyzed to produce the reports users want and need.
COMNET III predicts the performance of communications networks using object-oriented simulation analysis. No programming is required to use the standard, off-the-shelf model and object libraries. COMNET III provides an integrated, graphical environment for model creation, execution, and analysis that permits interaction with the model while it executes. For situations where a model developer wishes to customize or fine-tune some aspect of the standard model, an object development environment is available for overriding the behavior of COMNET III objects.
New access support assists in populating the data warehouse repository by increasing options for getting to legacy data. Extended connectivity support for APPC on Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and Windows increases access to legacy data in traditional IBM mainframe environments. New access to IDMS and IMS databases on the mainframe also increases options for attaching to other databases.
Embedded SpatialWorks components allow companies to integrate all corporate data into a common spatial context. This common view of information provides knowledge workers with new capabilities to monitor changes, identify trends, examine relationships, and make faster, more competitive business decisions.
OptiSite can suggest the optimum number and location of distribution centers, as well as the best use of current facilities. It can help decide which suppliers to use, where to stock products, how much to stock, and what distribution centers will provide the best service, at the least cost, to each market area.
OptiSite also helps determine the optimum distribution network in minutes.
OptiSite weighs nearly every variable possible, such as number and size of shipments, inbound and outbound freight rates by product, warehousing needs and capacities, supply sources, service levels, and many others. The model selects potential distribution center locations on its own, and it considers the potential distribution center locations provided, the ones it selects, or any combination thereof.
The software in the Solver Suite has all of the features and functionality of LINDO Systems' larger commercial versions. Students get valuable hands-on experience using the software already in use at over half the Fortune 500. The variety of applications allows students to learn more than just the basics of Linear Programming. It gives them the tools to also solve nonlinear models, build models in Excel or 1-2-3, and experiment with using a modeling language.
The Solver Suite comes with a comprehensive User Manual that thoroughly explains the commands and features of each program and discusses dozens of real-world based examples. Sample models are supplied to illustrate applications involving distribution, production and inventory planning, staff scheduling, capital budgeting, financial planning, portfolio optimization, and much more.
The Student Edition of SIMULINK is targeted toward students learning system modeling and simulation; in controls and systems courses in electrical, mechanical and chemical engineering; and across a range of other disciplines such as biology, chemistry, economics and finance.
Key features of the Student Edition of SIMULINK include:
The Experimental Design module contains all the routines necessary to set up an experiment, generate a worksheet for data collection and entry, and interpret the results graphically. Procedures include screening designs, response surface designs and mixture designs. Features include new contour plots and three-dimensional surface plots that allow users to see relationships among experimental variables, a built-in catalog containing over 140 experimental designs, and the ability for users to define custom designs.
The Time-Series module is for the analysis of data collected over successive periods, such as product sales, demographic information, or stock prices, enabling the easy identification of patterns and trends. Routines include descriptive methods, smoothing, seasonal decomposition and forecasting. In addition, a range of mathematical transformations can be applied, including accounting for inflation and seasonal factors.
An important part of the Maptitude package is a collection of data on CD including maps of all the streets in the United States as well as ZIP codes, counties, metro areas and demographic statistics. Also included are translators for important geographic data, including the U.S. Bureau of Census TIGER files, DXF files and geographic files from other popular desktop mapping systems.
IRIS Explorer Rel 3.0 is available on SGI hardware and will soon be made available, thanks to Open Inventor, on Sun, Digital, HP, IBM and Windows NT. IRIS Explorer is an interactive 3-D data visualization system and application builder targeted at scientists and engineers investigating complex phenomena represented by large data sets. IRIS Explorer is a powerful and easy to use system with a programming interface that does not require any additional programming.
Open Inventor is a C++ object class library based on OpenGL for complex 3-D graphics representation. Open Inventor has an intuitive user interface and an easy-to-use program interface. It has all the functions available on OpenGL in an object-oriented environment. Open Inventor allows developers to port 3-D graphics across all supported platforms.
The Financial Toolbox provides a robust set of functions essential to financial and quantitative analysis. The toolbox, in combination with MATLAB, provides a complete environment for financial computation and data visualization in a high-performance, open, standards-based environment. Financial professionals now have a workbench suitable for everything from running a quick analysis to developing advanced, full-featured applications. The Financial Toolbox helps build applications for pricing securities, calculating interest and yield, analyzing derivatives, and optimizing portfolios.
Toolbox functions are available in the following categories:
Scientific Center for Windows is a point-and-click reference designed to save time, space and money for those who are accustomed to thumbing through thick reference books or relying on an assortment of paper or plastic guides. The software, with a built-in conversion program (length, area, volume, energy, etc.) and link to a scientific calculator, also offers illustrations, a "personal page" that can be edited and printed, an on-screen user's manual and a chemical Periodic Table.
Among the subjects covered by the program include algebra, trigonometry, analytic geometry, probability and statistics, statistical process control (SPC), integrals, differentiation, series, constants, vector analysis, differential equations and hyperbolic functions. A full ASCII table is also included.
System requirements for Scientific Center for Windows are a PC 386 or higher, Windows 3.1, Windows NT and Windows 95, and at least 3 MB of free hard disk space.
Logical Decisions offers Logical Decisions 4.0 for Windows, a sophisticated decision analysis package that takes into account the social reality of decision making in organizations: The need to communicate to others why one decision is better than another.
New features in Version 4.0 include:
Insight Logistics has released INORDA for Windows, a finite capacity planning and scheduling software system. A revamped version of their earlier DOS-based scheduling system, INORDA provides a planning and scheduling system for both make-to-order and make-to-stock production environments. Employing four modules, the system offers a master production planning module; a shop floor finite scheduling module; a database administration module; and an order/production tracking and update module. These modules can be operated independently or combined and linked to your MRPII system to form an integrated MES.
Period demands and product orders can be scheduled in detail across a multi-staged production facility. Bulk, intermediate and finished products are planned and coupled with raw material or packaging component requirements. Scheduling interactions are provided to allow the user to review and manipulate the current schedule. A shop-floor update facility is also included that links to your data collection systems to allow for frequent update and regeneration of your production schedules.
NAG offers IRIS Explorer release 3 scientific visualization and application builder software for Silicon Graphics workstations. Release 3 is the result of joint development between software engineers at NAG and Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI).
IRIS Explorer release 3 features many performance improvements and system enhancements, as well as an increased module library. System enhancements include the passing of geometry via shared memory and an improved scripts interface. Additionally, scripting has improved synchronicity, providing more reproducible results. Synchronization ports on all modules provide better control over loops. A new visual drag-and-drop interface has been added, as have new widgets for module control panels. Editable groups are also available. Documentation has been completely revised and updated, and both hard copy and on-line versions are available.
New modules in release 3 include: NAG-based modules which use the well-known NAG numerical libraries and the NAG graphics library; modules for displaying vector data using particle avection, streaklining and vector display; new data analyzers for interpolation through 2-D and 3-D data, and outlining regions of interest in datasets; modules for creating and manipulating geometry; new annotation modules; new data readers (including PHOENICS and NTF data); and new colormap manipulators.
SCIENTIST Version 2.0, from MicroMath Scientific Software, is a new program for Windows dedicated to fitting model equations to experimental data. Other programs focus on matrix operations, or symbolic manipulation, or graphics, or engineering calculations in a worksheet; SCIENTIST incorporates elements of all these types of software, and more. A central activity in teaching and research is the analysis of data generated by experiments. This requires evaluating how well theoretical equations predict experimental results, which, in turn, requires fitting model equations to data. SCIENTIST fits equations to data: anything from y = a + bx to systems of differential equations, Laplace transforms, combinations of ODE's and nonlinear equations, or a variety of least squares or interpolating splines and polynomials.
The MathWorks, Inc. has released MATLAB 4.2c for the Macintosh, a version of the MATLAB Technical Computing Environment (TCE) that includes native-mode support for Power Macintosh and 68000 series Macintosh computers.
MATLAB on the Power Mac runs three to four times faster than on previous Macintosh platforms over the range of mathematical and graphical functions. MATLAB 4.2c also offers a new technical computing option - the Notebook interface for Microsoft Word. The Notebook feature runs on both the Power Mac and 68000-based Macintosh platforms. This feature allows users to create MS-Word-based interactive, technical documents, complete with embedded MATLAB commands and graphics. The Notebook combines the word processing features of MS-Word with the numeric computation and graphing capabilities of MATLAB to produce technical reports, presentations, documentation and electronic teaching materials.
Meta Software has extended the architecture of WorkFlow Analyzer, its BPR tool, to connect to commercially available workflow production systems. Meta is the first BPR tool vendor to link business process capture and simulation to workflow production in an easy-to-use package.
WorkFlow Analyzer allows users to document the structure of a mission-critical business process, and simulate its behavior, using a high-level graphical model. This same model is then used to automatically generate the routing information and flow logic needed to drive a workflow production system - guaranteeing consistency between the business model and the workflow implementation.
Batch Process Technologies, Inc. has just released BATCHES Version 5.0, a simulator designed for batch and semicontinuous processes. The Recipe Network has been upgraded by the addition of signals for inter-subtask communication, by expanding User Constants usage, and by the addition of process models. The User Interface improvements includes textual output controls, and more effective display of results. Other enhancements include batchwise mass balance, reporting of mass balance for tasks in selected equipment, more robust volumetric flows, and an interface to the PPDS2 physical properties database.
BATCHES has been designed to handle problems which are unique to multi-product and multi-purpose batch and semi-continuous chemical processes. The simulator allows you to evaluate alternatives for a variety of applications, such as scheduling, debottlenecking, retrofitting, "what if" case studies, process design, and detailed process dynamics.
GIS/Trans has released GIS/T-Conflate v1.51, an automated GIS conflation product. This ARC/INFO-based software provides conflation for the effective integration of complex GIS datasets, including TIGER, DLGs, modeling networks, polygon coverages and route systems.
CAPS LOGISTICS has released its TOOLKIT Version 3.5. Enhanced menu functionality, a spreadsheet-style browser window for easier viewing and editing of data files, a status bar and a customizable tool bar make the TOOLKIT easier to use than ever before. Greater variable management options, new data types and enhanced time formats, which allow users to work in both Julian and standard dates and time, provide more options for manipulating their data.
Phar Lap Software has released TNT Embedded ToolSuite, Realtime Edition, Version 8.0, a real-time development system for the developer who wants to create ROM or Flash-based embedded programs using standard 32-bit compilers and tools. Embedded applications built with TNT Embedded ToolSuite will run on any Intel 386/486/Pentium processor-based system. TNT Embedded ToolSuite, Realtime Edition includes a Phar Lap-developed real-time kernel with support for threads, priority scheduling, and inter-thread communications, such as semaphores, mutexes and events. TNT Embedded ToolSuite is designed for the embedded developer who wants to: build embedded programs using a robust real-time kernel; get embedded applications running in protected mode quickly; take advantage of the Win32 API standards; and use mainstream 32-bit compilers from Borland, Microsoft and Watcom, and debug applications with embedded cross-debugger versions of CodeView and Turbo Debugger.
FACTOR/AIM, from Pritsker Corp., used by industrial and manufacturing engineers to efficiently and effectively design and improve manufacturing operations, is now available with financial modeling capabilities. AIM Version 6.0 lets users easily make manufacturing operations decisions. Users can quickly create and evaluate alternative manufacturing strategies at both the operational level, including throughput and utilization, plus the financial level, including total cost, cost per part, equipment cost, and labor cost. Compare the total cost of alternatives with productivity statistics.
New features include:
S-PLUS 3.3 introduces new Windows features, as well as enhanced graphics tools in the Trellis Display Graphics Library. Survival analysis tools, an object-oriented matrix library, and data frame functions have also been added. These new tools give statisticians more power when viewing and analyzing multi-variate data, survival data, handling object-oriented matrices and manipulating data frames.
AutoSimulations offers version 4.5 of AutoSched, its scheduling software used to model the allocation of resources in the manufacturing environment.
AutoSched's version 4.5 enhancements include an accelerated processing (AP) mode, providing dramatic speed improvements for running capacity and scheduling analyses. The AP mode allows AutoSched to run five to 15 times faster, giving users the ability to quickly evaluate alternatives for long-term planning and scheduling periods.
AT&T Istel has released WITNESS 7.0. This release of the WITNESS Simulation Software is fully integrated into the Windows environment Windows 3.x, 95 and NT. Featuring OLE2 compatibility, WITNESS seamlessly shares data with other Windows applications and allows models to be controlled by other tools like spreadsheets. In addition, video clips and sound can now be added to your WITNESS model. WITNESS Release 7.0 also includes updated forms to detail your model, a hypertext help system, new match rules and enhanced buffers.