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Gensym Rolls Out G2 NeurOn-Line 5 for Improving Real-Time Performance Management; Major Upgrade Enhances Prediction of Critical Performance Factors

Posted on: Thursday, 29 June 2006, 15:00 CDT

Gensym Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: GNSM), a leading provider of rule engine software for mission-critical solutions, today announced a major upgrade of its G2(R) NeurOn-Line(R) software product for predicting variables in processes that impact business performance. G2 NeurOn-Line version 5.0's neural-network predictions enable decisions that improve throughputs, consistency, utilization, quality, margins, and other performance targets.

A major issue for operations in manufacturing and utilities is variability, which can have many sources, including fluctuations in materials being processed, wear of processing equipment, different operators and operating shifts, constantly changing demands for outputs, and even weather conditions. Variability makes the control of processes more difficult, leads to problems such as poor quality, and reduces process performance.

Built on Gensym's proven, award-winning G2 real-time rule engine platform, G2 NeurOn-Line combines neural-network and rules technology for managing variability in real time. Its neural-network models analyze online operational data to estimate and predict important process variables that would otherwise be impractical to measure in real time. The neural networks emulate human capabilities for recognizing patterns and learning from experience using both historical and real-time data. G2 NeurOn-Line's neural-network predictions take into account variability to drive decisions that result in efficient automation settings for an operation.

"G2 NeurOn-Line's predictive powers are proven for improving business performance," said Lowell Hawkinson, Gensym chairman, president, and CEO. "For example, JEA, the Jacksonville, Florida electric and water utility, uses G2 NeurOn-Line to predict hourly consumption of water within their distribution network as part of a solution that in its first phase saved over $1.4 million in capital expenses. With this major new release, we've enhanced NeurOn-Line's impact on performance by extending its prediction capabilities and by boosting the productivity of application builders with a completely new user interface."

Partners Embrace G2 NeurOn-Line 5

"We specialize in applying Gensym's reasoning technologies within our Batch Expert software for management of batch processes common to pharmaceutical, chemical, and food and beverage production," said Douglas Myers, president of Intelligent Laboratory Systems (ILS), a Gensym partner based in Illinois. "Our focus is to provide our customers with reliable, real-time solutions that reduce variability, increase yields, and lower costs. Controlling batch processes is challenging because of the difficulty in detecting process events and measuring variables related to quality, such as composition, density, pH, or viscosity, in real-time using hardware instruments and because these processes are so dynamic. We have been working with pre-release versions of G2 NeurOn-Line 5.0 to introduce new capabilities for predicting complex events and process variables and then using these predictions to directly control the process and guide operators on how to best adjust process settings. We are pleased with this release's new capabilities and look forward to working with it."

"At several North American water utilities we are implementing a combination of information technologies and operating strategies that we call Operations Optimization," said Larry Jentgen, vice president with EMA, Inc., a Gensym partner and specialized consulting firm servicing utility, public works/municipal, and manufacturing organizations. "OO enables utilities to defer millions of dollars in capital expenditures, reduce operating costs, more effectively manage water supplies, and improve water quality. One of the underlying technologies is G2 NeurOn-Line. Its neural-network models make accurate real-time predictions of water consumption that enable us to successfully apply other decision technologies, including optimization, simulation, and rules. Version 5.0's enhanced integration of NeurOn-Line's offline and online environments is of particular interest to simplify the retraining of models using current online data. We look forward to taking advantage of this and other version 5.0 enhancements in our OO installations."

Predictive Business Opportunities

G2 NeurOn-Line's neural-network technology can support a broad range of predictive business applications in data mining, sales forecasting, futures forecasting, commodity pricing, exchange rates, interest rate analysis, stock analysis, fraud detection, risk assessment, traffic demands, and more. Users can deploy neural networks as part of standalone applications or embedded in other systems.

Predict, Control, Optimize

G2 NeurOn-Line 5.0's capabilities enable comprehensive real-time performance management, including:

-- Prediction: G2 NeurOn-Line's neural-network technology models real-time variables of complex systems that are impractical to directly measure or to represent using other analytic techniques. NeurOn-Line users rapidly create robust models that predict variables through intuitive and interactive preprocessing of training data, automatic selection of the best neural-network architecture, and combining the best results from several models into a single ensemble model. Version 5.0 further enables accurate predictions through new statistical techniques that complement neural-network analysis.

-- Supervisory control decisions: Unlike other neural-network products, G2 NeurOn-Line combines real-time rules and neural networks for deployment. Rules and neural-network predictions together determine the automation settings that achieve greater process consistency and quality and that enable better performance. Rules complement the neural networks by detecting and responding to unusual input data and conditions that can lead to inaccurate results, detecting operational problems based on predicted values, and advising operators how to best respond to problems detected by the neural networks. Version 5.0 strengthens this combination through greater integration of NeurOn-Line's Development Studio and the G2 deployment environment. Version 5.0's redesigned user interface increases ease-of-use for building and deploying solutions.

-- Optimization: Once G2 NeurOn-Line's neural networks enable more consistent control of a process, its built-in online linear optimizer can precisely drive process settings to best achieve performance objectives, such as throughput or minimal resource usage, while at the same time achieving quality targets.

For more information about G2 NeurOn-Line's capabilities, please visit its page on Gensym's Web site at http://www.gensym.com/?p=g2_neuron-line.

Availability

Gensym's G2 NeurOn-Line 5.0 is planned for availability in July, 2006. Gensym will demonstrate G2 NeurOn-Line's capabilities in a Web workshop on August 30, 2006 titled "Real-Time Performance Management using Neural Networks." To register, visit the Seminars and Workshops page of Gensym's Web site at http://www.gensym.com/?p=seminars_and_workshops.

About Gensym Corporation

Gensym Corporation (www.gensym.com) is a leading provider of rule engine software and services for mission-critical solutions that automate decisions in real time. Gensym's flagship G2 software applies real-time rule technology for decisions that optimize operations and that detect, diagnose, and resolve costly problems. With G2, the world's largest organizations in manufacturing, utilities, communications, transportation, aerospace, finance, and government maximize the agility of their businesses and achieve greater levels of performance. Gensym and its numerous partners deliver a range of services throughout the world, including training, software support, application consulting, and complete solutions.

Gensym, G2, and NeurOn-Line are registered trademarks of Gensym Corporation. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Source: Business Wire

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