FriarTuck establishes strategic relationship with NBS

(Singapore) August 31, 2002- FriarTuck, the market leader in developing constraint-based event scheduling software, takes a big leap into the education market with the establishment of strategic relationship with Nanyang Business School at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Prof. Martin Henz, the Managing Director of FriarTuck, is confident that the relationship with NBS will be a key to penetrating into other education institutions. "We have adequately met the needs of Nanyang Business School with our unique technology and we are eager to help other educational institutions throughout the world in optimization their timetabling systems and examination schedules," he said.

FriarTuck has come a long way since its incorporation in August 2001. The Company boasts of unique solutions that deploy advanced optimization technologies. FriarTuck's solutions have been used to optimize sports schedules and nurse rosters, besides the university timetables and examination schedules. The team of FriarTuck has several years of research experience in advanced optimization technology and complex-event scheduling.

FriarTuck's solutions in the education market have addressed a growing need of Universities and Schools to come up with efficient and optimized timetables and examination schedules that take into account the demands and preferences of professors/teachers and students. With increasingly complex elective and modular systems, core-curricular and extra-curricular activities, the process of developing timetables and schedules becomes more complex every year.

On the other hand, tight budgets impose restrictions on the deployment of staff, the use of facilities and other resources. This situation results in complex timetabling problems, whose optimized solution lies at the heart of every educational institution.

FriarTuck deploys state-of-the-art optimization technologies such as constraint programming, mathematical programming and heuristic search to develop its solutions. These technologies offer powerful tools for solving optimization problems, leading to substantial savings and improved quality of service. Educational institutions can greatly benefit from optimized timetabling by:

• Minimizing course timing conflicts of students and thereby increasing student enrollment and satisfaction,

• Accommodating the maximizing preferences of teacher's/professor's, thereby increasing their productivity and quality of service,

• Minimizing the use of facilities and thereby reducing cost,

• Optimizing examination schedules with respect to time clashes, and

• Optimizing other preferences that are deemed important by individual institutions.

Want to learn more? Send email to: media@friartuck.net