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The SCY Lab Platform Features

The SCY Lab decisions platform consists of a library of components and an interpreted language (Scython) for organising the components and creating custom workflows, which can then be linked to API calls via the platform’s configurational mechanisms.

All the various products listed on the Products menu are built on top of the platform, thus making it possible to have interlinked workflows across various products as also other components of the platform. The products therefore do not have to function in ‘silos’ (as they often do in the case of our competitors), thus making bounderyless solutions possible for customer implementations.

The various features of the platform are listed below.

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01

Batch Planning

Users (with proper permissions) can create new batch runs of different modules like master planning, demand planning etc or custom modules created for the customer implementation. The batch runs can also be scheduled to run in an automated manner using custom scheduling rules (ex: every Monday morning 1 am or every 15th day of the month etc).

When new batch runs are created, old batch runs continue to exist and are available for queries. A configurable maximum limit exists on the number of batch runs that are allowed to be queried upon parallely. Once the limit is exceeded, the oldest running batch is automatically archived before creating a new one. An archived batch can be retrieved and queries run on it via user menus (with requisite user permissions), although the maximum limit restriction on the number of batches will continue to be enforced.

02

Scenarios & What Ifs

Scenario is the mechanism that platform provides to run what if analysis on batch runs without changing the batch master data. A user can create any number of what if scenarios, make data edits, replan, view the changes, run analytics on them etc. Users can also copy data from one scenario to another, promote the changes to master data (provided the user has permissions – refer user management section) or compare reports across different scenarios with easy single clicks.

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03

Solvers

Solvers are high performance algorithms that solve specific planning problems using optimization methods, heuristics or combinations of the two. Over the past few years, SCY Labs has built a comprehensive library of sophisticated solvers for various planning problems. The Products menu details the available ones for each product.

04

Data representations

Most of the entities relevant to the supply chain management context have been modeled into the platform, along with their key attributes and properties. These are available for use within the scython workflows, allowing custom algorithms, reports and analytics to be created easily. Further, custom attributes and properties as also new custom models can be created for implementations.

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05

Analytic tools

The platform supports custom aggregation and disagreggation of data across multiple dimension hierarchy intersections. Most of the key performance metrics relevant to the supply chain management context are available in the platform library. New customised ones can also be created for implementations.

06

Reporting tools for UI

The platform supports a host of UI visualisations, which can be created using scython workflows and then linked to menu items using the platform configuration tools. The visualisations supported are tables, trees, pivot tables, network diagrams (schematic as well as overlaid on google maps), bar charts, gantt charts, xy-plots, dashboards, animated simulations as also combinations of the above. The visualisations also support configurable right click context menus, editability, comparison across scenarios, bookmark, save as excel sheet, custom action buttons etc. The standard features can be modified by the implementation or customer support teams via scython.

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07

Notification Mechanisms

Custom notification mechanisms like emails and SMS can be setup via scython by the implementation team. For example, every night at 12 am GMT, an email can be sent to a specified set of email ids with a custom report of status changes as an xl sheet. As another example, every time plan for a specific resource changes, an email or SMS can be sent to a specified set of email ids and phone numbers. Further, the logic as also the recipient list can be changed by users (with appropriate permissions) via menu clicks. Complex logic for any of these can be incorporated by our support or implementation teams very easily.

08

Archival & Retrieval

Users can archive (or store) batch run results (including scenario changes) and retrieve them later. Individual customer implementations may place some restrictions on the expiry date of these archivals. For example, a specific customer implementation may state that archived data beyond 365 days may not be available.

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09

Document management

The platform also supports document storage and retrieval. Users can upload, share and download documents via menu clicks. Read and execute permissions can be set on these.

10

User management

The platform enforces user authentication via unique user names and passwords. Every user has to be registered for a service (URL) with a specific user role. The user role specifies what functionality that user can perform on that service (what menu each user can see etc). Further data filters can also be applied on what a user can view or modify. If two users have different user filters applied, the same menu click will display different content. The user filters can be applied by geography, product brands/models, customers or other custom attributes or any combination of these attributes (OR/AND). The customer implementation and support team will be responsible for setting these.

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11

Data security

Data security is of extreme importance to every customer and the SCY Labs platform takes this very seriously. The combination of user authentication, roles and permissions provide the desired data security. Apart from this the platform has inbuilt mechanisms to discourage phishing by automated bots.

12

Compound components

While the above listed components and features are standard, customer implementation and support teams can create compound components via scython. These compoud components can then be re-used inside multiple workflows just as regular components.

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