Decision intelligence for the physical world.
Mission
Every factory is a stream of decisions: what to buy, what to make, what runs next, who runs it. Each is taken under constraints that are physical, human and unforgiving. Most are still made by hand, under pressure, with a spreadsheet.
We exist to make those decisions as good as the best planner on their best day, every hour, in every plant.
What we study
The intersection of machine learning and operational research. Optimisation gives you the right answer to a well-posed problem; learning tells you what the problem actually is. Neither is enough alone. We work on systems that read a plant, pose its problem precisely, solve it, and explain the result. They improve as the people who use them push back.
Operational research
The mathematics of deciding well under constraints. It scheduled convoys in the 1940s, airlines in the 1980s and warehouses in the 2010s. It has never reached most factories, because every factory is its own problem and the modelling was too expensive to do by hand. That is the part we believe AI changes.
Why factories
Because the stakes are physical. A plan is not a recommendation. It becomes steel, hours, shipments and shifts. Manufacturing is where a better decision does the most good for the most people, and where a bad one is felt immediately.
Who we are
A small research group founded by two Cambridge-trained physicists. Our backgrounds are in operational research and machine learning for logistics and supply chains, in astrophysics, and in algorithms for quantum computers. The common thread is hard optimisation under physical constraints, which is what a factory is.
We build the platform ourselves and run it in real plants. The research is not separate from the product; it is how the product gets better.