Companies benefit from business
software
By Anna Herkamp
Summer
Reporter
Many people may be surprised to know that Gap stores
and the field of mathematical modeling would have anything to do with
one another. As a matter of fact, Gap bought some software that does
just that: it mathematically models some of its various business aspects.
The company in Purdue's research park that sold
Gap this software is Advanced Process Combinatorics, founded by Joe
Pekny, professor of chemical engineering and his colleague, Don Miller
in 1993. The two were doing some research for the U.S. Army when they
got the idea for this type of software.
The software is used to plan and schedule, supply
chains in business and provide their customers with a tool they can
use to get their products out more efficiently.
The business has also worked for other high-profile
customers including Coca-Cola, Castrol Motor Oil, Eli Lilly and Co.
and Proctor and Gamble.
Combinatorics is a branch of mathematics that concerns
the variety of possible combinations of objects within given constraints,
according to an information pamphlet about the company. Combinatorics
is used in a process, which is a series of operations leading to a result
or product.
In other words, the mathematics are applied to
specific customers' business needs and then put through a process which
results in a tool the customer can use to run their business.
There are many other businesses that do this type
of consulting to their clients. However, what's different about this
company is that each customer gets individual attention and deals with
only one person at the company, said Mike Menefee, vice president of
operations.
The company employs only 18 people, eight of them
holding PhDs, three hold master's degrees and four are Purdue students.
One employee, vice president of research and development, Larry Baxter
worked at Harvard's medical school before working for Pekny.
At Harvard, Baxter was an assistant professor at
Harvard in the department of radiation and oncology, where he worked
on cancer research projects using mathematical modeling.
Pekny knew Baxter from their college years at Carnegie-Melon,
and asked him to work for his start-up company, which only employed
two or three people at the time. There he would be doing the same kind
of work with mathematical modeling.
"Our research is applied research. The customer
will bring us a problem and we solve it for them, but that product can
be sold to other clients as well," said Menefee.
"As opposed to high volume developments, (the business)
combines process engineering knowledge with application technologies.
We will talk to a potential customer and tailor a product to support
their needs," said Baxter.
One thing employees of the companies said they
liked including recent Purdue graduate Brian Ashcraft, is the small
business aspect of being able to work in an environment in which everyone,
including the president of the company, is easy to talk to.
Ashcraft, who has worked at the company since last
December said the experience he has gained at the company has given
him opportunities including programming and client interaction he may
not have been able to gain elsewhere.
He said he interviewed with several other companies
in which he would have had jobs more related to his major, Organizational
Leadership and Supervision. He decided to work for the business so he
could "stick with the technology" side of his work.
"I'm learning new stuff every day," he said.
John Schroeder, a junior in the School of Technology,
also works for the company part-time.
Schroeder said he interned at Caterpillar, a construction
machinery company, and said his experiences at the company are similar
to Ashcraft's.
There are so many hierarchies in a company like
that, you never get to see the upper-level employees, and you only get
to interact with the people you work with. At the business, it's a completely
different environment, he said.
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