April 18, 2001: Crew Assignment gives Swedish Railways (SJ) increased planning flexibility

Carmen Crew Assignment has not only increased SJ's and Green Cargo's flexibility, but has also provided the staff with the possibility to control their working hours by submitting personal requests for where and when they want to work. SJ AB and Green Cargo AB provide their personnel with easy access to rosters, trips, and preference outcomes in web-format on their intranet.

In September 1999, SJ started a research study in conjunction with Carmen Systems. The goal was to evaluate if Carmen Crew Assignment could meet SJ's high flexibility needs as well as take into consideration individual crew preferences. Carmen Crew Assignment passed the test with flying colors. SJ decided to take Carmen Crew Assignment into production gradually with SJ's Green Cargo in Malmö publishing their first rosters in February 2000. "Carmen Crew Assignment makes it possible for SJ and Green Cargo to meet present day demands from employees and customers," says Jolanta Drott, Director Green Cargo PROFS - Resource Optimization. Carmen Crew Assignment will be taken into production gradually for all 54 areas at SJ AB and Green Cargo AB. All areas are expected to be in production in 2003.

These words were spoken by the Director SGT of Iberia, José Ignacio Huerta Gray.

Iberia has been using Carmen's products since 1998. The company started with Carmen Crew Pairing and took 22 planning areas of Crew Assignment into production between December 1999 and October 2000. All together, 6 500 crew have their rosters published each month.

"We are really impressed that Carmen could mould their application for our very particular environment. That's really creating Resources in Balance,"comments José about the Crew Assignment installation.

Iberia has now moved on with preferential bidding - Carmen PBS. The pilots are placing their requests (bids) from any web browser over the internet via the Carmen InterBids application. The pilots can place bids for time off, special pairings, flights with friends etc. They can also filter out and study what pairings that are matching a potential bid.

Tomas Klemets, Carmen's Project manager says: "The PBS project has been running very smoothly thanks to the close cooperation between Iberia and Carmen. The initial results look very promising for the coming months. We will shortly see a total of 2,400 pilots with more control over their rosters.

"The project will continue for a few more months, taking the final fleets into production.

March 15, 2001: Q4 - 2000 results

Carmen Systems AB reports record revenues and earnings for Q4 2000.

Sales in 2000 totaled SEK 82 million, of which 60% comes from recurring revenues (rental agreements). This is a 31% climb compared to 1999 and in line with expectations.

"We don't agree with vendors who claim that the market was flat during 2000," says Leif Heidenfors, Carmen's CFO. "As the market develops demands will increase on resource optimization solutions. Carmen's unique ability to meet that demand is what matters and drives our growth. I am very pleased that in a few short years Carmen has established itself as the leading provider of integrated planning and decision support solutions (crew, fleet, yield) for the airline industry."