By Allan Maurer
ATLANTA—Several years ago an automotive company came to then Georgia Tech professor Dr. Roy Marsten, a major-award-winning math whiz, with a problem: how could they optimize a product mix with up to millions of possible variations? He founded Emcien, a company graduating from the Atlanta Technology Development Center this month, to solve that problem.
An expert in “computational optimization,” and dealing with extremely large problems, Marsten recruited his graduate student Radhika Subramanian as CEO and launched Emcien in 2002.
The company landed a succession of National Science Foundation grants totaling in the millions as well as a private placement to an undisclosed investor to commercialize its Product Mix Management software. Emcien says its solution continuously identifies the fastest sellers along with the poorest performers.
“We went quickly from the prototype in the lab to a company using it,” says Subramanian. Within three months, the company acquired its first customers. The company first collaborated with the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Extension program, which took them to the John Deere plant in Augusta. “They took a look and jumped on it,” she says.
Then, a GM plant in Metro Atlanta viewed the product said it wanted to pilot the project. The company has about six customers now.
The company’s Software as a Service offering, billed on dollar volume analyzed, helps product managers figure out which optimized set of configurations captures the feature demand mix customers want most efficiently? Getting the answer to that question right can aid manufacturers of vehicles, electronics and other goods.
It helps manufacturers better match product offerings with demand and reduce non-performing products and supply chain costs. As a direct result, the company says, clients enjoy more efficient configurations that produce higher sales velocity and happier customers.
Subramanian says that seeking constant feedback on its product is part of Emcien’s culture. “Where are the pain points?” is the question constantly asked during its development, she says.
The pain points are frequently that manufacturers offer a bewildering range of products and features. On a car lot, for instance, Subramanian point out, a dealer may have room for 10 to 20 trucks that come in literally millions of variations. “What should I stock,” the dealer wants to know.
On the back end, manufacturers want to know what the dealers will be ordering in five months. “Everyone has to get ready, so this product variety thing is a huge problem,” says Subramanian.
Although the company will graduate to larger quarters upstairs from its current space in the ATDC incubator, Subramanian is full of praise for both the incubator and its open door environment. “It’s great to be able to go across the hall and talk to someone about a problem without getting in a car and driving.” Nearby Georgia Tech is also a source of both talent and brainpower, she adds.
Emcien currently employs fewer than 50 people and is hiring sales and engineering staff. It is not looking for additional funding in the near term.
The word Emcien comes from the formula for combinatorial combinations used to compute the possible number of customer orderable combinations.
Emcein’s Web site includes white papers describing the benefits some of its customers in automotive and electronics gained from using its software.
On the Web: www.emcien.com
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