At the core of CombineNet's Advanced Sourcing Application Platform, CombineNet's advanced combinatorial optimization technology continues to define a new generation of best practices in sourcing. With patents issued and others pending, the company's intellectual properties are actively supported by the brightest math, computer science and algorithm engineering minds in the world.

Simply put, the technology is distinguished by its capacity to model more dimensions to the target problem than any other offering available. It is this analysis capacity that enables the concept of Expressive Commerce, whereby sourcing teams can analyze an unlimited number of Expressive Bids alongside their business goals, constraints and preferences to find the optimal solution. This is done quickly and easily by the sourcing team because of the amazing solve times of the system. Solve times which continue to improve against problems that just three years ago were considered infeasible.

Supply chain problems are inherently combinatorial, so modeling all dimensions of the problem is vital.  When viewing the interactions of supply and demand in a real world context, we intuitively know that each piece of the puzzle affects the entire picture and that each piece is ever-changing.  So when applying optimization to establish order and ensure the best possible solution, the danger associated with "shoe horning" the problem into a fixed or limited model is not only a poor practice, but  can lead to precisely wrong answers; costing your organization significant savings opportunities.  

Linear programs and other similar approaches are simply not up to the task. The market-based clearing problems targeted and solved by CombineNet's technology require highly expressive formulations.  And therein lays the difference: real world problems modeled without compromise by the most experienced practitioners and solved in seconds.

When evaluating the capabilities of advanced sourcing and optimization technologies, consider the solution's support for (or lack of) the following:

• Expressive Bids
• Dynamic Feedback

• Flexible item and quantity specification
• Rich side constraints
• Anytime output
• Optimal constraint relaxation
• Feasibility obtainment
• Infeasibility diagnosis
• Targeted negotiation
• Automated scenario navigation

• Support for multiple formats
• Non-price attributes
• Clearing control

• XML-based input and output languages
• Input and output language DTDs
• Minimize sensitive data transfer
• Secure network access