News - SLIM Technologies Teams with Dash Optimization for World-Class Optimization Solutions

Boston, MA - August 2, 2004 - SLIM Technologies, whose SLIMTM is the leading supply chain network modeling software for both strategic and tactical supply chain planning, and Dash Optimization, whose Xpress-MP is the world's leading optimization solver, today announce a significant advance in supply chain modeling and optimization. SLIM Technologies has chosen Xpress-MP as its exclusive solver component to be used in SLIMTM. The combination of SLIMTM and Xpress-MP will allow companies to model and optimize their supply chain networks faster, more accurately and with better bottom line results then ever before.

Global 2000 companies, such as Procter & Gamble, Alcoa, Canadian Tire, BASF, Amazon.com and Hudson's Bay Company, are using SLIM Technologies' and Dash's optimization technology to gain significant financial and performance benefits in supply chain management, logistics and asset management.

According to Dan Sobbott, VP, Business Development of SLIM Technologies, "We believe that SLIM Technologies has now matched best-of-breed solver technology with best-of-breed supply chain design software. When we benchmarked Xpress-MP against our previous solver technology, we not only saw run times that were 6 -15 times faster with Xpress-MP, but also we saw better quality solutions. This is a very exciting development for SLIM Technologies, and, more importantly, for our clients. This will significantly improve our clients' optimization processes and the value of their optimization solutions."

SLIMTM has been widely recognized for its unique abilities to model large, complex supply chain networks. The dimensions and complexity of these network models require cutting-edge solver technology to optimize them efficiently; this is where Xpress-MP excels. Xpress-MP utilizes proprietary algorithms and ultra-efficient sparse matrix handling to allow it to solve the largest problems in record time.

According to Jeremy Shapiro, President of SLIM Technologies and Professor of Operations Research and Management, Emeritus, at MIT, "Sophisticated optimization models are necessary and desirable to thoroughly analyze complex supply chain planning problems. Only Xpress-MP has the algorithmic number-crunching power to rapidly and consistently extract optimal or very-near optimal solutions to such models. This means that SLIMTM users can quickly create, validate and apply optimization models to the study of their strategic and tactical supply chain plans."

Alan Dormer, Director of Dash Optimization adds, "We are delighted that SLIM Technologies have obtained such excellent results on such challenging problems. Xpress-MP is the optimization component of choice for supply chain software products and applications and this further strengthens its position. Dash is committed to superior technical support and year on year performance improvements, and we look forward to a long and successful partnership".

About SLIM Technologies
Based in Boston, SLIM Technologies offers supply chain optimization software and consulting services that enable our clients to increase profits, reduce costs and improve supply chain performance. The SLIM Technologies team has decades of success in developing, implementing and supporting supply chain modeling and optimization systems used for tactical and strategic planning. SLIM Technologies has delivered solutions with significant financials benefits to a broad range of client companies, including Alcoa Industrial Chemicals, IKEA, Bowater Paper, Doane Pet Care and DHL. For more information, please visit www.slimcorp.com.