Vision
Carmen has a long-term commitment to R&D; in resource optimization and its use in decision support systems. The R&D; division is made up of a third of Carmen's employees, and the research group contains PhDs from several different countries. Extending the cosmopolitan outlook are research projects carried out with international academic institutions.

The vision of Carmen's R&D; is to provide a seamless system for solving the full spectrum of planning and operational problems in the transportation industry. This is being accomplished by developing and integrating the building blocks of this system: the global rule and modeling language (Rave), the core optimization engine (Matador), the operational data manager (Flamenco), and the configurable graphical user interface (Studio).

With the combination of Rave and the optimizer, we provide users with the ability to master targets in planning and operations, and the power to integrate traditionally separate processes. The next step is to base the system on real-time data management that allows to stay in sync with the operation at all time and to further increase the change power, i.e. the ability to rapidly adapt to changes and maintain a competitive edge.

Key Concepts
Target Mastery - Know what you get
To be able to benefit from optimization one needs to make trade-offs between conflicting targets in a controlled way. How much can better roster quality or stability cost? How close to aircraft maintenance deadlines should one plan? The goal is to find a plan that is operational and uses available resources effectively. In order to do this you want to find out what is the most efficient trade-off between different resources.

Change Power - Changes always happen
What is optimal today might not be optimal tomorrow. New agreements are negotiated, new bases opened, maintenance sites closed, seat configurations changed, timetables revised, the roster publication procedure changed, new fleets introduced, etc. The only thing one knows for certain is that something is always changing. With our modeling language, Rave, we provide the means to master changes in legality, quality and cost structure as an ongoing process.

Power Integration - Global optimization instead of sub-optimization
Sometimes one may want to consider many resources in a combined optimization process. Data from surrounding business processes can easily be integrated. An example is the integration of fleet and crew planning. By solving the crew pairing problem before building aircraft rotations, a much greater range in the types of pairings can be generated, while at the same time still be able to build feasible and cost effective aircraft rotations afterwards. This holistic perspective shows significant savings.