Bunge Alimentos, one of the world's largest agribusiness and food companies, with a wide product distribution network, has chosen SAS software to integrate data and perform descriptive and predictive analysis to solve even their most complex optimization problems.

Using optimization in the manufacturing industry guides better decision making. It shows how to use the available resources (people, materials, silos, plants, tools, machines and time), producing finished goods in the most efficient way possible. Though decision makers are diligent, as the complexity of business and of the production process increases, visualizing all the options in order to choose the best one becomes literally impossible. Optimization becomes not only useful but necessary for sound decisions.

"We saw opportunities to better structure supply and demand planning, shipment planning, taxes, and the use of logistical assets in an integrated and proactive way," said Luis Fernando Neves, Agribusiness Planning Manager at Bunge in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. "Logistical costs in commodities are one of the leading factors determining competitiveness. We needed to anticipate problems more quickly and take corrective steps before problems arose. Using SAS/OR, it became easier to reduce the company's costs."

According to Business Wire, the changes started a year and a half ago when Bunge's executives requested the services of SAS. Within one year, they implemented the new optimized network in the agribusiness division, and the benefits became clear.