The science of predictive analytics: Your data gets smarter

Imagine you could...

balance workloads for nurses and improve patient care

offer a competitive price for the products customers care about most

identify the risk of asset failure and have the spare parts you need in stock

maximize lifetime customer revenue across your hotel chain

anticipate budget gaps before they happen

Imagine you could make your data work harder.

Infor Dynamic Science Labs 2

From data exhaustion to competitive advantage

Infor Dynamic Science Labs 3

Data is all around us—in the web we surf, the phones we carry,

the machines we operate, and the cars we drive. Of all the world’s

data, 90% has been created in just the past two years. Every

year from now, that data is going to double. And it’s not just an

increase in volume, but also a change in the types of data like

multimedia data or generally unstructured data. A whole lot of

data today is going to be a whole lot more—and more complex—

data tomorrow.

Businesses are approaching a tipping point. Perhaps you’ve

embraced the promise of big data. Maybe you’ve already invested

in capturing the information. Whether it’s big data or just more

complex data, what can you actually do with it? What does it

mean? What can you learn from it? How can it help your business?

To make your investment in big data really pay off, you need

to harness your data in an intelligent way so you can use it

as a basis for making better, faster decisions and even self-

learning decisions that can inform future actions. As part of

Infor CloudSuite™ subscriptions, Infor Dynamic Science Labs

(IDSL) builds machine learning and predictive analytics into Infor

applications so that companies like yours can turn big data into

a big competitive advantage.

The next generation of enterprise software won’t just

collect, report, and distribute information. It will anticipate

problems and respond with solutions. It will uncover

opportunities and recommend next steps. It will drive

strategies in all areas of business, from recruiting and

staffing to asset management and pricing.

Infor Dynamic Science Labs 4

Infor Dynamic Science Labs

Infor Dynamic Science Labs is a group of scientists,

mathematicians, economists, and engineers,

driving the next generation of enterprise software.

That means software that is smart, self-learning,

and focused on the future.

We work with customers and product managers

to identify industry-wide challenges and then

solve them using elegant but understandable

scientific methods.

How we’re building it

Our vision

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Current projects

Data Science: More than a sales pitch Solutions that are easy to understand

Data Science, like Data Analytics, is a term so widely overused

it’s started to lose its meaning. We think about the word

Science in a more rigid sense. We arrive at solutions through

the Scientific Method—proposing and testing falsifiable

hypotheses so that opposing ideas can be questioned and

verified. In other words, we put a strong emphasis on testing—

first with the team on the project, then across the IDSL

organization, and finally with you.

We recognize the complexity inherent in analyzing Big Data,

and so we take extra steps to make the solutions accessible

to users. We achieve this by analyzing the data with a rigorous

scientific approach and by explaining why a decision is being

recommended in terms that can be universally understood.

It’s critical that the solution is intuitive and accessible—or else

it will go unused.

What makes IDSL different?

Healthcare inventory optimization

Infor Lawson

Distributor pricing

Infor SX.e, M3, and A+

Customer scoring and prioritization

Infor CRM

Distribution and manufacturing inventory optimization

Infor LN, EAM, and M3

Nurse-patient assignment

Infor Care Assignments

Spare parts optimization

Infor EAM and M3

Employee scheduling and retention

Infor WFM and Lawson

01

Discover

Every project begins with

a problem—a customer

problem. We work with

you to understand your

pain points and how we

can help.

02

Cleanse

You provide the data and

we validate in order to focus

on a core set of data.

03

Describe & diagnose

This is when we analyze the

data—identify patterns, examine

the outliers, and determine

cause and effect. Throughout

this phase, we provide you

with our key findings to help

you understand what happened

and why it happened.

04

Solve

Based on our findings, we

utilize predictive algorithms

to model a solution.

05

Test

We review the model outputs

with end-users to ensure that

the right problems are being

resolved. Are the results

actionable? Do they make

sense to users? After models

are validated, we work with

Infor development teams to

build them into the software.

06

Measure

Once the solution is in

your hands we evaluate how

the algorithm is performing:

Is it providing value to your

organization?

07

Refine

IDSL solutions are dynamic,

self-learning, and always

evolving. We continuously

evaluate and refine our

algorithms, add new data

sources, and keep you up to

date. Otherwise, even the

best solutions will ultimately

find themselves stale.

The IDSL approach

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Can a charge nurse more effectively distribute workload, matching nurse skill sets with patient-specific needs?

USE CASE: HEALTHCARE

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Nurses are chronically overworked and understaffed.

According to a 2014 study conducted by Nursing Times

and ITV, eight out of ten nurses reported they don’t have

enough time to give patients adequate care, and 25%

believed they had put a patient’s life at risk because they

were too busy.

Every day, it is the charge nurse’s job to create an optimal

staffing plan for the next 24 hours. He or she must balance

each nurse’s workload while also considering factors such

as continuity of care, language, room proximity, and most

important, matching the expertise of a nurse based on the

needs of a patient.

We are currently working with several healthcare providers

to better understand their specific variables, objectives, and

constraints. With this information, we can build an optimization

model that obeys multiple constraints. One important step is to

ensure that every patient is assigned to a nurse:

Further, depending on the type of nurse and availability, each

nurse may have different workload capacities. This would

constrain the number of patients they can see between F and G:

After we test, review, and refine the solutions with our healthcare

partners, we will deliver the solutions through Infor software,

empowering charge nurses to easily create daily staffing

assignments optimized for every nurse and every patient.

The challenge How we’re solving it

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G

How can distributors optimize prices?

USE CASE: B2B PRICING

Working closely with Infor customers, we are creating models that

will help sales managers set prices that maximize both customer

loyalty and their businesses’ margins.

Our price models allow What-If analysis to provide insight into

the impact of future price changes. Instead of manually managing

prices for each individual customer, our solutions will help sales

managers maintain dynamic customer groups using customer

dimensions such as cost to serve as well as real-time product-

specific financial performance, seasonality, and price response

data. The dynamic nature of these customer clusters ensures that

they stay up to date over time as new customers are acquired and

current customer purchasing patterns shift.

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Dimension 5

Dimension 4

Dimension 1

Dimension 2

Dimension 3

Relative intensities of customer characteristics for customer clusters

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Ziad Nejmeldeen

Chief Scientist

“ Through beautifully crafted software, Infor

simplifies the way people work. And now,

with Dynamic Science Labs and the power

of predictive analytics, Infor is simplifying

the way organizations make smarter, better

informed decisions.”

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We are scientists, mathematicians, economists, and engineers, fittingly based

in an epicenter of innovation: Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Our backgrounds range from astrophysics to chemistry, econometrics

to operations research. We come to IDSL with experiences in predictive

analytics, mathematical modeling, optimization, forecasting, and more.

These scientific techniques can be applied across all industries while also

specialized for a particular industry. Our focus is to help customers identify

opportunities and then we create and validate solutions that will make

decision-making smarter for your organization.

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The team behind the science

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Bringing more than ten

years of scientific expertise

to the team, Nejmeldeen is

responsible for supporting

all aspects of prediction

and optimization across

each of the 12 industries

served by Infor products.

Prior to Infor, Nejmeldeen

served as Vice President of

Science at Quantum Retail.

Nejmeldeen holds a B.S.

degree from the University

of California, Berkeley and

a Ph.D. in Economics from

the Massachusetts Institute

of Technology.

Ziad Nejmeldeen

Chief Scientist

Copyright ©2015 Infor. All rights reserved. The word and design marks set forth herein are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Infor and/or related affiliates and subsidiaries. All other trademarks listed herein

are the property of their respective owners. This document is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute a commitment to you in any way. The information, products and services described

herein are subject to change at any time without notice.

INFDTP1463584-en-US-0315-1

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helping 73,000 customers in more than 200 countries and territories improve operations, drive

growth, and quickly adapt to changes in business demands.

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Learn more:

Get in touch

If you’re interested in learning more about

predictive analytics in your Infor solution or

collaborating with the IDSL team on a future

project, contact your Infor representative or

email us at science.labs@infor.com.

infor.com/idsl