Chris Botha and I conducted a workshop with a leading fertilizer company last week and were blown away by the intricacies and the far reaching impacts of this industry. The client is looking to improve their optimization process for long range planning currently being run (like most companies) on a whiz-bang set of xls sheets. Since their model doesn’t quite fit the standard SNP Optimizer, we suggested a phased approach of building a custom solver and then incorporate that into a standard IT implementation using the SAP APO Optimization Workbench. We have an excellent partner who specializes in supply chain optimization engines combining their Operations Research PhD’s with real business implementation experience. We are very optimistic that this will help the client run rapid long range optimization “what ifs” to help quantify strategic corporate initiatives. Drop me a note if you are interested in discussing this solution or other custom optimization options.

On a side note, the fertilizer business is a great one to be in right now. With the world population growing, poverty and nutrition improving, limited space for new farming lands, and the push for renewable biofuels, the world needs fertilizer!