Tsinghua University, one of the top universities in China, renewed a cooperation agreement Wednesday with ILOG, a French optimization software company, following a successful first year.

Tsinghua University has been using ILOG software to study mid- and short-term production planning problems in semiconductor manufacturing environments in China.

This software includes ILOG CPLEX, the world's most widely deployed optimization software, ILOG Solver, ILOG Scheduler, ILOG Dispatcher and ILOG OPL Studio.

"Optimization software can simplify the management of complex resources to meet the requirements of a business in the shortest time," said Foo Jongtong, general manager of Asia Pacific ILOG.

"People in China are little aware of the concept of optimization software. By cooperating with the university, we can educate students about the software. When they graduate, they will take the habit of using these methods to the whole of society," Foo added.

"We have published four papers, submitted three papers to academic journals, and introduced this software to our students in several courses. The students like to use ILOG tools to conduct research on problems," said Zheng Li, professor at the Industrial Engineering Department at Tsinghua.

Apart from Tsinghua, ILOG also has cooperation agreements with Fudan University, Xi'an Jiaotong University and Beihang University.

ILOG optimization software improves business efficiency and decision-making by allowing businesses to calculate the best way to use resources, and implement a plan that can deliver millions of dollars in savings.

Over 2,000 global corporations and more than 400 leading software vendors rely on ILOG's systems to improve investment and sharpen their competitive edge.

One successful project between the two included reducing the time between planning and production by 80 percent for a semiconductor manufacturer.

This resulted in cost savings estimated at more than 1 million yuan (US$123,000).

(China Daily September 22, 2005)