SAS/OR® Software
What is SAS/OR software? SAS/OR software provides a powerful array of optimization, project management, scheduling, simulation and decision analysis techniques to identify the actions that will produce the best results, while operating within resource limitations and tight restrictions.
Why is SAS/OR software important? SAS/OR enables organizations to consider more alternative actions and scenarios, and determine the best allocation of resources and the best plans for accomplishing goals. Incorporating operations research analytics not only adds structure and repeatability to decision-making processes, it can optimize your BI investments to deliver the competitive edge.
Who is SAS/OR software designed for? SAS/OR is designed for people in any industry with operations research or management science experience who build decision support models by applying operations research techniques to solve real-world problems.
Key Benefits
- Unparalleled breadth in operations research capabilities. SAS/OR offers the broadest available spectrum of operations research modeling and solution techniques, and includes state-of-the-art advancements in mathematical optimization. The depth of detail and realism in modeling capabilities, control of optimization and scheduling processes, and integrated approach to data access and information delivery enables organizations to identify and distribute the best answers to complex planning problems.
- An interactive modeling and solution environment. The latest release of SAS/OR lets you build models interactively, modifying constraints or variables and experimenting easily with the effects of changes to underlying data. With the OPTMODEL enhancements, a specialized modeling language makes the translation from symbolic formulas into SAS transparent and direct. Best of all, SAS/OR selects an appropriate solution method for the business scenario. Problems are solved intuitively and efficiently whether they are linear, nonlinear or quadratic.
- Incorporate more data, more easily. With SAS/OR it is easy to indicate where and how input data will be used in a model. Data/model separation is maintained, which is critical when reusing models or model components. Users can select the aspects of the solution to be reported, and can control the form in which they are reported.
- Faster response times for large, complex models. SAS/OR’s new accelerated solution methods with faster solvers generate quicker answers to large, real-world problems.
Key Features
Mathematical optimization
SAS/OR software contains sophisticated mathematical programming techniques that can help determine the best use of limited resources to achieve objectives. It provides:
- NEW! A single modeling language that uses the same syntax for linear, nonlinear, quadratic and mixed-integer optimization problems. With SAS/OR, you don't have to worry about switching modeling environments or using different procedures to declare appropriate solution algorithms. The software will select the most appropriate solution technique.
- NEW! Algebraic, symbolic optimization modeling that transparently represents symbolic formulations in SAS. The OPTMODEL procedure offers a rich optimization modeling language with specialized syntax and constructs that intuitively allow problems to be formulated efficiently and translated quickly into SAS/OR models.
- NEW! Powerful optimization solvers and presolvers that have been streamlined for simplicity and tuned for speed so you can solve larger enterprise and resource planning problems more quickly. High-performance problem solvers include primal simplex, dual simplex and iterative interior-point algorithms, as well as a state-of-the-art quadratic programming solver.
- NEW! An interactive mathematical modeling and solution environment . Each optimization solver can be controlled interactively, enabling you to monitor, pause and adjust the optimization process as desired. You can try out different versions of the same model, and easily experiment with the effects of changes to the underlying data.
- Network flow optimization. Network flow models are common in supply chain manufacturing and transportation situations with a node and arc structure. Nodes represent physical/temporal locations and arcs denote the transfer of key commodities between nodes. With SAS/OR, extremely complex network flows can be modeled to represent supply, demand, inventory and transshipment scenarios.
Project and resource scheduling
SAS/OR gives you the flexibility to plan, manage and track project and resource schedules through a single, integrated system. It provides:
- Interactive scheduling. Extensive control over the scheduling process is provided. Output includes detailed project schedules and profiles of resource usage and availability across project time lines.
- NEW! Earned Value Management analysis (experimental). Earned Value Management capabilities enable you to track, analyze and predict the cost and schedule performance of projects in progress. SAS computes metrics describing the budget impacts of current deviations from original plans and generates insightful projections of final costs. (Experimental status refers to a preliminary version that is released in order to get customer feedback. It has been tested, though not to the level required for a "production" release.)
- Decision analysis. Decision trees help structure the process of decision making under uncertain conditions, allowing the examination of all possible outcomes. In input data sets you describe the problem structure, the probabilities of the various outcomes and the associated payoffs. SAS/OR analyzes the decision problem, incorporates your attitude toward risk and utility, and identifies an optimal strategy.
- Bill of material processing. SAS/OR performs bill of material processing, reading product and component structure data and composing the information into single-level, multi-level and indented bills of materials. Summarized reports show quantities of all items needed to fill orders for finished goods. These capabilities can work in conjunction with SAS/OR's project scheduling features to determine the impact of parts availability on production and delivery schedules.
Discrete event simulation
SAS/OR continues to provide the QSIM graphical modeling environment for performing discrete event simulation. With prebuilt sampling, queueing and timing components, you can build sophisticated computer models to determine better ways of conducting business.
NEW! Genetic algorithms and constraint programming (experimental)
SAS/OR includes two new options for customers seeking innovative approaches to tough problems. Genetic algorithms apply principles of natural selection and evolution in working with groups of solutions to optimization problems. Constraint programming builds solutions to constraint satisfaction problems – constraints only, with no objective – by choosing values for individual solution elements and tracking each choice's effect on allowable values for the remaining elements. (Experimental status refers to a preliminary version that is released in order to get customer feedback. It has been tested, though not to the level required for a "production" release.)
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