Operations Research
Operations Research (OR) uses sophisticated analytical methods and mathematical algorithms to make better decisions in complex situations.
Digital decision-making in complex environments
We are convinced that AI can empower people to take action. In a business context, where AI applications will continue to grow in the coming years, it is designed to support people at work and improve decision-making in companies. This comes into play wherever sufficiently complex processes, possibly under time pressure, require far-reaching operational decisions. We can optimize or automate all these business processes using artificial intelligence.
INFORM is increasingly focusing on cloud-based solutions that give customers easy access to AI systems. Our software is not built on algorithms applied arbitrarily to different problems, but on algorithms that we have developed for the specific requirements and challenges of certain industries and applications. In doing so, we stand for a transparent, responsible approach to AI in which the responsibility always remains with the human in the loop.
We support the claim to make AI made-in-Germany a brand internationally known for quality, innovation, and inventiveness.
Ethical approach to artificial intelligence
Our goal is trustworthy AI. That is why we have defined guidelines for the responsible use of AI. These are based on six central principles:
- Beneficial AI: Ensuring AI systems enrich both users and society, mitigating negative impacts like bias and misinformation.
- Human-centric AI: Promoting AI's supportive role to humans, enhancing decision-making processes, and upholding human responsibility.
- Aligned AI: Guaranteeing AI is in sync with human and business values, with clear and understandable AI as a foundation.
- Privacy-preserving AI: Upholding European Union’s GDPR standards and achieving top-tier security standards endorsed by ISO 27001 certifications.
- Reliable AI: Prioritizing quality, consistency, and transparency in AI applications, especially in vital sectors.
- Safe AI: Crafting AI algorithms that ensure safety, and ward off potential threats.
Dr. Jörg Herbers, Co-CEO INFORM, on the announcement of OUR new AI guidelines.
Our Technology
INFORM draws on many years of experience in many areas of AI, from general problem solving and decision-making to knowledge representation, automatic reasoning, deductive intelligence, machine learning, and intelligent control of autonomous systems. By combining techniques from these areas in a hybrid approach (Hybrid AI), our software systems can perform core functions traditionally associated with human intelligence, such as decision making and learning, among others.
- Expert knowledge about business processes and behavioral patterns as well as planning goals and constraints is poured into digital decision models. AI techniques (e.g., constraint programming), together with OR algorithms (e.g., mathematical optimization), can explore many millions of alternative decision options extremely quickly to deliver truly optimized results.
- Machine learning techniques are used to automatically discover new knowledge by searching large data sets for patterns. Predictive models use these patterns to classify events and make forecasts about quantities, times, and durations. In this way, they also provide better input for decision models.