News

Amazon Prime Air Will Fly on Big Data’s Wings – by Beth Schultz, Editor in Chief, AllAnalytics.com

Amazon, one day in the not-so-distant future, wants to set the air abuzz with package-delivery drones. Today, it will have to be satisfied with buzz of a more personal sort, as industry watchers analyze the feasibility of the proposed Jetson-like Amazon Prime Air service.

Should anyone have missed this news, let me recap. In a 60 Minutes interview that aired Dec. 1, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos described his vision for a world in which you can order that to-die-for sweater you’ve just seen on Amazon and be wearing it 30 minutes later. Amazon would use mini-drones, called octocopters for the eight blades they sport, to deliver the package to your doorstep — optimistically, as early as 2017.

The plan comes with caveats, to be sure. For one, you’d have to live in a metropolitan area near an Amazon fulfillment center — but the idea is fascinating nonetheless. As 60 Minutes reporter Charlie Rose said during the program, Amazon wants “to sell everything to everybody around the world, as fast as possible.”

Bezos readily admits that much work remains to make mini-drone deliveries on a large, commercial scale possible, and skepticism is certainly rampant. But we already know the power of prescriptive modeling and optimization in fine-tuning a global package delivery network, from our conversations with Jack Levis, director of process management at UPS. (See Inside Analytics: UPS Delivers the Goods.) So maybe the idea isn’t quite so impossible after all — algorithmically speaking and from a data perspective, at least.

For insight on that, we turned to Roei Ganzarski, COO and president of BoldIQ, which had powered the now-defunct (but not for lack of optimization) DayJet on-demand air taxi service. BoldIQ is in use within a number of other industries that have real-time needs and lots of disruptions with which to contend. Ganzarski brings his experience as a former Boeing executive to the discussion, as well.

He’s among those who say we can count on Amazon to make this happen, “as funky an idea as it is.” And in so doing, it will conquer four distinct worlds: same-day logistics; drone operations; aviation, with the introduction of unmanned aerial vehicles into airspace; and big data, which is a new world in its own right but also encapsulates the three others, he told us.

So let’s zero in on the big data nature of the Prime Air concept, as did Ganzarski: All this is going to be happening in real-time, disrupting all those worlds, each of which produces huge amounts of data and requires huge amounts of compute power. It’s not doable, of course, without advanced optimization software.

Amazon has to find a way to know in real-time as every package request comes in whether it has a drone to take it on, Ganzarkski says. If no, it’ll put it on a truck and push out delivery time to a day or more. If yes, it needs to know all the ripple effects of that decision.

He continued: If Drone No. 1 is taking this package, once it arrives at its destination, what is its next path going to be, and its next one after that? And as things change, like a new demand comes in, or a drone breaks down, or a wind burst comes in and changes the weather pattern in that urban area, what’s the next move? Amazon will have to be able to immediately — and I’m talking milliseconds — re-network and re-schedule what its drones are doing with the packages… and at the same time, let the customers know what to expect.

There is a precedent, of a sort, in on-demand private aviation, he notes. In this market, an aircraft could be at any one of the 5,000 or so airports that accept private aviation. The service also requires a pilot and copilot who are not only certified to fly that aircraft, but who also have enough rest time as specified by the FAA. Demand, generally from wealthy individuals and corporate executives, can come at any time and require a flight to and from any of those airports.

Which aircraft is selected depends on the number of passengers and their luggage: There’s a lot that goes into the matching between the right — not just the one that can — aircraft to fly them with the right pilot and copilot so the entire network meshes in a seamless fashion, so the customer gets what he wants, and the operator is able to serve that demand while being profitable and safe.

So the beginning stages of the full-on capability, whether via a software package from a vendor such as BoldIQ or developed internally at a company like UPS or, undoubtedly, Amazon, are out there and operational already. The big data piece won’t be the problem, it seems. What will be, as you see it?

Click here to go to the AllAnalytics site

Executive AirShare Selects BoldIQ Flight Scheduling Software

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Dec. 2, 2013 — Regional fractional aircraft ownership company Executive AirShare today announced the company has selected BoldIQ’s ASTRO fully integrated all-inclusive operations management system and SOLVER optimization engine to manage aircraft crew, flight and maintenance schedules for the rapidly growing company.

BoldIQ’s integrated software fully automates the flight planning and dispatch process, dramatically reducing the workload on flight planners, dispatchers and pilots, while improving data accuracy and enabling more, timely decision-making.

Executive AirShare, in the midst of its fourth consecutive year of double-digit growth, selected the BoldIQ software based on its ability to ensure efficient operations for the company’s growing fractional and managed fleet, which currently includes a total of 47 jet and turboprop aircraft and 92 pilots serving more than 160 shareowners, members and management customers.

“Ensuring our shareowners have maximum intraday flexibility is one of the reasons they choose Executive AirShare and our ‘per day’ aircraft availability model,” said Harry A. Mitchel, vice president of operations, Executive AirShare. “The BoldIQ software not only ensures that we’re operating at maximum efficiency, but also features the ability to adapt and accommodate our growth as we add new aircraft and serve new markets.”

“The New Green Economy is about making intelligent business decisions that lead to sustained profitability while reducing any secondary impact on the world around us,” said Roei Ganzarski, President & COO of BoldIQ. “Performing more customer flights with less resources, less fuel and fewer emissions, is the competitive advantage we enable our customers in a world of high volatility and increasing customer expectations.”

About Executive AirShare
Executive AirShare serves shareowners in Kansas City, Mo., Wichita, Kan., Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Buffalo, N.Y. Its subsidiary, Executive Flight Services, manages aircraft for owners from bases in Fort Worth, Dallas, Wichita, Kansas City and Buffalo.
Executive AirShare is the world’s largest operator of Embraer Phenom aircraft and currently serves the Central U.S. and Great Lakes region, operating a fleet of Phenom 300, Phenom 100, Citation CJ2+, King Air 350 and C90B aircraft. Executive AirShare also offers aircraft management and charter services through its subsidiary, Executive Flight Services. For more information about Executive AirShare and its services, please visit www.execairshare.com.

Two key DayJet components making a comeback: Eclipse VLJ and software that was a secret weapon – by Graham Warwick in Aviation Week

Five years after DayJet’s ambitious adventure into per-seat, on-demand air taxi operations ended in financial failure, two key components are making a comeback — the Eclipse very light jet and the operations management and optimization software that was DayJet‘s secret weapon … BoldIQ is finding new markets for the software technology. … BoldIQ, meanwhile, is working to apply the software that enabled DayJet’s unscheduled operations to other markets that must optimize resources and deal with disruptions to operations, including commercial airlines, maintenance and health care providers and the military….

A key piece of DayJet, meanwhile, was its ability to operate with no fixed schedule, constantly adjusting operations as customers booked seats or changed plans, while minimizing flights with one or no passengers and operating within constraints such as weather and pilot duty times. To accomplish this, DayJet developed automated operations management software and an optimization engine. As DayJet neared demise, an outside investor saw the potential of its optimization software and bought the code, says Roei Ganzarski, president and COO of Seattle based BoldIQ.

Today, the company is developing markets inside and outside aviation for its two software platforms. The operations management software, with its embedded optimization engine, is already used by charter, aircraft-management and fractional ownership companies. Now, BoldIQ is targeting truck and taxi fleet operators and the energy sector, as well as optimizing computer systems in the health care and information-technology markets.

A selling point for the system is it produces an operational, not theoretical, solution, Ganzarski says. “[DayJet founder] Ed Iacobucci needed a result he could implement, so we take all the rules, regulations and workflows and produce an optimal operational solution,” he says. Within 60 sec. of a change, the software produces three alternative mitigation and recovery plans, with ripple effects on customers and financials. This optimization can reduce business aviation operating cost by 4-16%, he says. When fractional operator AvantAir, which has since suspended operations, cut its fleet to 24 aircraft from 54, it only reduced revenue flights 10%, he says, by using the optimization engine to work aircraft harder and minimize dead-head flights. BoldlQ has yet to break into corporate flight departments, but “with six or more aircraft, it makes sense to look at optimization,” says Ganzarski,
“We see four key markets for the optimization tool,” he notes, particularly in markets that need to recover quickly from operational disruptions. Beyond continued expansion in business aviation, there is optimization of commercial airline operations. “They have long term network planning tools, but are not strong on real-time optimization,” he says. Then there is maintenance, repair and overhaul, “which is a huge real-time disruptive environment.” There is also the military, and its need to reduce costs and resources.

BoldIQ has an agreement with an unmanned aircraft company to optimize the use of UAVs. “We can increase the missions by 10%, which means they can buy fewer UAVs for the same missions or do more missions,” Ganzarski says.

Click here to see full Aviation Week story

Ganzarski named Chair of the Global Business Advisory Board at the University of Washington Foster School of Business

Roei Ganzarski is President and COO of BoldIQ. He is the Chair of the Global Business Center’s Global Business Advisory Board and holds an MBA from the Foster School.

Tell us a bit about BoldIQ. How did it come about, and what is your role in the company?

Thomas Edison once said: “There’s a way to do it better – find it”. At BoldIQ we find it for our global customers every day. We are a developer and provider of software platforms enabling real-time, optimal and actionable solutions for resource utilization, operations management, and disruption recovery, in complex business environments. Using our proprietary technology, our customers experience net operating savings of 4% to 16% and an increase in revenue-generating capacity of ~10%. Beyond ongoing real-time optimized planning, our platform provides on-the-fly change management from an entire systems perspective.

We originally developed our robust operations management platform and our optimization engine to support an innovative new air carrier: DayJet Corporation. We worked for 5 years developing systems and algorithms to support the very complex world of air taxi – no fixed schedule; constantly changing customer demand and requirements; variable unpredictable working environment including changing weather; multiple resources required to deliver each service; and a multitude of legal and operating constraints. This required complex automation and significant optimization, solving a large problem in seconds, multiple times a day, every day.

As president & COO, I am responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company, our growth, and our business.

 How did you become interested in global business?

My father worked for an international container shipping company and I spent my childhood in Asia watching him grow the business. We then returned to our homeland in Israel where I continued watching him grow the business throughout the world. I was intrigued and fascinated by his ability to talk to a political leader in China in the morning, solve an operational  problem in Italy in the afternoon, and then contend with the daily business of ships and crews scattered across the seven seas, all in complete calm and as  second nature. I was privileged to grow up in an environment where ‘global’ was simply the norm, and I was hooked.

 You serve on 3 advisory boards. What do you like about advising, and what direction would you like to take the Global Business Advisory Board in now that you’re the chairman?

I have been fortunate to experience a lot from a global perspective, both as a youngster, and a business leader working for companies like Boeing and BoldIQ, and I now feel that it is my duty to share that experience and knowledge with others so that we, as a whole, can continue to get better. Moreover, I am finding that I am learning just as much as I am imparting, which is what this is all about- always learning and always getting better.

As chair of the board, I would like to see us, the business community, take a more active role in the global education of our next generation’s leaders. My plan as chair is to help drive that forward. Seattle and the Pacific Northwest have an abundance of global companies – leaders in their respective markets and industries. We have globally known brands like Starbucks, Boeing, Costco, Amazon, and Microsoft to name but a few. We also have an abundance of less known brands that are global leaders in their fields. We must take advantage of that to the best of our abilities and help shape what tomorrow’s leaders need to know and need to be able to do, to continue the legacy that we are creating for them today. It is not just about jobs and internships. It is about shaping the academic and experiential programs that our students should go through to prepare for the world of global business. I would like to see the board take a more active role in this influence, and see the school and professors take a more active role in seeking out that real-world guidance from us.

 What would you tell students about the world of global business?

I would say that there is no longer such a thing as global business. I would say that today, the world of any business is global whether we like it, or plan it, or not.  Be it on the supply side (parts, materials, goods, or software engineers); be it in the customer base; be it in sourcing support or services; or even in the hiring of our employees – everything today has some element of global in it. So I would say get ready for an amazing environment of business that is making the world smaller and smaller and with that driving the need for an expanded knowledge and understanding of the world and the people in it. Your time at university is an amazing opportunity to experience, experiment, learn and try new things that later you may not get a chance to. Use the time wisely and fully and enjoy the journey.

BoldIQ Team GlobeAir profited in 2012 despite downward trend

GlobeAir ended the 2012 financial year with a profit of over €200k (EBITDA) and is showing further signs of growth in spite of a declining European charter market.

Bernhard Fragner, founder and CEO, said: “From the onset, we knew there had to be a more efficient way of running a private jet business successfully. Through our innovative business model we have achieved economies of scale. The shift in the charter market and the resulting downgrading has actually been very beneficial for us. Not only has the VLJ sector in general gained strength, GlobeAir has flourished and I expect that we will continue to grow in the coming three years. I still believe, and our numbers actually show, that our business model is the only efficient way of doing business in this industry, at least in Europe.”

“In a strong market, anyone can look like a winner,” said Roei Ganzarski, president and COO of BoldIQ, the company whose operations management and optimization software was selected by GlobeAir to complement their innovative business model. Ganzarski added “but it is in challenging times like these, that the true innovators and market leaders shine and we are proud to be partnered with GlobeAir as they continue their successful trajectory”

“We bet on the right ‘horse’ at the right time,” said Bernhard Fragner. “For our future the shift in the charter market means we will base our sales strategy on expert views, such as that of Richard Koe from WINGX, as well as the expectation that the charter market will continue to change in our favour.” Fragner added: “The foundation of AirClub with some of our partner operators here in Europe late last year marks yet another step forward in this changing environment. A concept such as that of AirClub supports the new generation in our industry.”

Richard Koe, managing director at WINGX added: ”We have taken a look at the VLJ and a peer group of light jets, in terms of fleet development and flight activity since 2008, and several highlights show up: across this fleet, VLJs have increased their share of activity by almost 10 x in the last five years; even whilst overall European charter activity has subsided since 2008, VLJ aircraft have enjoyed a compound annual growth rate of more than 35% over the same period; there is an obvious trend of charter users migrating from light jets to VLJs, particularly in the last two years. “Insights show some very interesting results regarding GlobeAir’s competitive share in comparison to its VLJ and light jet competing operators when look at City Pairs in Western Europe in 2012,” Koe concluded.

FlightSafety International Welcomes BoldIQ to its Extended Advantage Program

FlightSafety International is proud to announce that it has selected BoldIQ to participate in its Extended Advantage Program.

“We recognize that the operational requirements placed upon our Customers, beyond training, continue to grow at an astonishing rate,” said Chris Weinberg, Director of Strategy & Business Development. “Through the Extended Advantage program, FlightSafety is helping our Customers satisfy these demands by identifying products and solutions that meet the same quality standards that they expect when they come to FlightSafety. We feel that BoldIQ will deliver significant value to our Customers’ flight operations in a time when resource constraints continue to grow.”

BoldIQ, will provide FlightSafety’s Customers with preferred pricing for its fully integrated and automated flight operations management platform – Astro™ – with its built in optimization engine – Solver™. The Astro™ platform offers the ability to optimize large scale resources and manage disruptions, all in real-time, generating significant increases in productivity and decreases in operating costs. BoldIQ is a global provider of revolutionary software-driven optimization solutions to industries that operate in highly complex, constantly changing environments.

“We are very proud that FlightSafety International, a global leader in the aviation industry, selected us,” said Roei Ganzarski, President & COO of BoldIQ. “I am confident that our highly sophisticated automation and optimization platform will provide FlightSafety’s Customers with a level of value to their operation they have not seen before.”

Other FlightSafety Extended Advantage program partners include ARGUS – PRISM – Safety Management System; PASSUR – Flight operation data analysis; Alertness Solutions – Fatigue Awareness Training; Absolute Computer Solutions – Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) bundles and support; Onboard Data Systems (OBDS) – Electronic Checklist Customization & Update Service; and CLIP Training – Microsoft Windows & Office online training.

FlightSafety International is the world’s premier professional aviation training company and supplier of flight simulators, visual systems and displays to commercial, government and military organizations. The company provides more than a million hours of training each year to pilots, technicians and other aviation professionals from 154 countries and independent territories. FlightSafety operates the world’s largest fleet of advanced full flight simulators at Learning Centers and training locations in the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Japan, South Africa, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

Bye Aerospace Selects BoldIQ for Silent Guardian Hybrid UAV

Denver, CO – Bye Aerospace, Inc., a Denver-based company applying clean energy solutions to innovative aircraft designs for the aerospace and defense markets, announced that BoldIQ Inc. will provide operations optimization and disruption management software for the planned hybrid UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) called the Silent Guardian.

BoldIQ, the revolutionary optimization software company, will provide its fully integrated and automated flight operations management platform – Astro™ – with its built in optimization engine – Solver™. Through the application of sophisticated proprietary systems-based optimization, the Astro platform will enable customers of the Silent Guardian to plan and accomplish more missions at any time with a given number of aircraft, than with traditional planning methods. Furthermore, the Astro platform supports real-time optimized and actionable disruption management & recovery, and rapid automated scenario planning, thus adding a level of overall mission reliability for the customers. The Astro system was developed to support a ‘management by exceptions’ doctrine. The high level of automation, intelligent rules engines, scalability and flexibility, will provide customers with the ability to manage the planning and ongoing operation of their fleet and missions with less personnel and to a higher degree of operational efficiency. This is another aspect of the superior value proposition offered by the Silent Guardian program.

The first of its kind hybrid UAV concept utilizes a turbofan engine for initial high performance takeoff and climb. Stored electric power and very advanced thin film solar photovoltaic (PV) provide energy for electric thrusters to enhance its extraordinary endurance, quiet operations and low emissions. Potential government applications for Silent Guardian include border patrol and homeland security, search and rescue, visual and thermal reconnaissance and forward air control. Potential civil applications include disaster and fire detection and management, energy and natural resource surveillance, large area border security, treaty, fishery and aerial law enforcement, extreme range cargo ship convoy protection, pipeline and power transmission line inspection, large area weather monitoring, including hurricane ‘hunting’ and satellite-like aerial photography, communication and data relay.

George Bye, CEO of Bye Aerospace, said selecting BoldIQ is the optimal choice for the unique Silent Guardian solar electric hybrid program. “Given shrinking defense and government budgets combined with higher expected returns, the ability of BoldIQ’s solution to enable our customers to accomplish more missions with lower operating costs is exactly in-line with the overarching value we are proposing,” he said.

“The Silent Guardian represents a revolutionary new paradigm in unmanned aviation,” said Roei Ganzarski, President & Chief Operating Officer of BoldIQ, adding “with a mission of enabling our customers to expect and realize more from their resources, we are proud to have been selected to partner on such a bold new program.”

Bye Aerospace, founded in 2007 and headquartered near Denver, is applying clean energy solutions to innovative aircraft designs for the business aviation and defense markets. For more information, go to www.ByeAerospace.com.

DayJet Technologies renamed BoldIQ The revolutionary optimization software company renamed to better align with its global cross-industry solutions

DayJet Technologies, announced effective January 14, 2013, the company will be renamed BoldIQ.

“We are very excited about our new name,” said Roei Ganzarski, President and Chief Operating Officer. Ganzarski continued, “We believe this name aligns well with the principles and values that have served us to this point, and will continue to guide us as we grow and expand our business – to provide our customers with forward thinking, cutting edge, and sophisticated solutions that enable them to optimize their operations and manage and recover from disruptions in real time.”

In order to advance its business strategy, the company completed a broad market and brand evaluation study resulting in the selection of this new name. The name change is part of a broader growth strategy to expand into, and serve additional industries operating in complex environments. The company’s current global customer base is in the aviation market. BoldIQ is well positioned to continue its growth in aviation with the robust solution of the proprietary optimization engine – SOLVER – embedded in a fully integrated and automated operations management platform – ASTRO. The integrated platform provides an unrivaled solution in this market segment.

SOLVER itself is a sophisticated industry-agnostic platform that can solve complex problems in real time using off-the-shelf computers. It is applicable to any highly complex industry that must balance expensive capital resource utilization and continuously changing market demand, all while adapting to ad-hoc disruptions, industries such as energy, telecommunications, information technology, military, and the broader transportation market. This proven platform is the basis for BoldIQ’s cross-industry growth strategy.

BoldIQ is a global provider of revolutionary software-driven optimization solutions to industries that operate in highly complex, constantly changing environments. The BoldIQ differentiator is our ability to optimize large scale resources in real-time, generating significant increases in productivity and decreases in operating costs.

European based GlobeAir chooses DayJet Technologies for Operations Software and Optimization Services

DayJet Technologies, the revolutionary technology-based optimization company, today announced that its ASTRO system with fully integrated optimization engine – Solver – has been chosen by GlobeAir, a leading European private jet company, as its operating software platform and optimization service.

Since its establishment in 2007 GlobeAir has successfully expanded its operations in Europe reaching a market share of 40%. Operating across the constantly changing markets of Europe, GlobeAir needed a robust solution that would facilitate adapting operational plans on a regular basis as well as in real time. The combination of DayJet Technology’s ASTRO aviation operations platform and its proprietary real-time optimization engine – Solver – provided the perfect match to GlobeAir’s requirements.

“DayJet Technologies plays a key role in helping us achieve our vision of expanding our position as the market leader in the niche of customized business flights,” said Bernhard Fragner, Chief Executive Officer of GlobeAir. “Using the DayJet Technology ASTRO system will enable us to make integrated and informed decisions in real-time so that we can grow our business and provide our customers with world class service”.

“We are proud to have been chosen as GlobeAir’s partner for this key element of their growing business,” said Roei Ganzarski, President & COO of DayJet Technologies. “It is very satisfying to see how we are enabling a complex business to make informed, integrated, and intelligent decisions in real-time as their environment changes, so that they can better serve their own customers and themselves.”

GlobeAir Ag is a private jet company based in Austria. With almost 40 % of the market share it is Europe’s leader within the sector of very light jets. Currently, GlobeAir has the world’s largest fleet of modern Citation Mustang jets and is IS-BAO as well as Wayvern certified. GlobeAir AG jets can land at challenging airports such as St. Moritz, Lugano, St. Tropez, Bolzano, which are not accessible to traditional airlines and other business jets. GlobeAir AG has achieved its success through dedication and by offering the best service before, during and after the flight.

DayJet Technologies Strengthens Leadership Team

DayJet Technologies (DJT), the revolutionary technology-based optimization company, has named Roei Ganzarski, a leader with more than 20 years of experience heading and growing global sales, business development, marketing and strategy, as President and COO. DJT has also named Doug Halperin, a software and systems veteran with 30 years of experience in leading state of the art technology development, as executive vice president of engineering and technology.

“Roei’s successful track record of efficiently and effectively leading high-performance teams through growth on a global scale, will be invaluable to the company,” said Eyal Levy, chairman of the board at DJT. “He is able to take complex market conditions and company capabilities, and translate them into an actionable customer-focused growth strategy.” Levy added “Doug’s vast experience with ground breaking technology firms makes him a perfect leader to take our technology to the next level”.

Prior to this role, Ganzarski was with the Boeing family of companies for thirteen years in continuously increasing roles of responsibility. Most recently he served as Chief Customer Officer for Boeing’s Flight Services division where he led all worldwide customer and market facing organizations and was responsible for revenue growth and customer service. Ganzarski is a graduate of Wharton’s Advanced Management Program, earned a MBA from the University of Washington and a BA in Economics from The University of Haifa.

Halperin has played key management roles and held advisory positions for e-commerce and software companies before joining DJT. He has extensive experience in designing and building both eCommerce solutions and enterprise systems. Among other roles, he was CEO/CTO of 1000Museums, a technology company working with art museums; led operations and engineering for Pictopia, a photo eCommerce company; and been President/CTO of Res Express, a Web-based travel reservation system. Halperin earned his B.S. in Mathematics and M.S. in Computer Science from Brown University and has been an adjunct member of the faculty of the computer science department at City College of San Francisco.

DayJet Technologies is a global provider of revolutionary software-driven optimization solutions to industries that operate in a highly complex, constantly changing environment – industries such as aviation, information technology, telecommunications, and energy. The DayJet Technologies differentiator is our ability to optimize large scale resources in real-time, generating significant increases in productivity and decreases in operating costs.