Bengt Persson, the Senior Vice President of Quality and Tech Support, presented a session about driving quality across the globe during the 2011 Premier Business Leadership Series in Singapore. Persson told the story of how Volvo Trucks uses analytics and data flow to standardize and optimize warranty claims across Volvo’s
There is a lot of talk hither and yon about a “double-dip” recession. Not at all uncommon when you consider past recessions. Let’s take a look at some data from the June 2011 survey of senior financial executives from the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI to dig into the double dip theories. MAPI
Exploring correlation between variables is an important part of exploratory data analysis. Before you start to model data, it is a good idea to visualize how variables related to one another. Zach Mayer, on his Modern Toolmaking blog, posted code that shows how to display and visualize correlations in R.
Contributed by Rex Pruitt, IFSUG Chairman ~ During SAS Global Forum 2011 in Las Vegas, a small group of users gathered to organize the first IFSUG (Insurance and Finance SAS Users Group). Today, there are more than 370 enrollees in IFSUG Constant Contact, 60 members in the IFSUG LinkedIn group
Notwithstanding the need to differentiate their value proposition in today’s highly competitive world, companies are sometimes forced to plagiarize even when it comes to public events. For attendees, it is generally the same ole, same ole agenda and faces, staffers drained of passion and exhibitors looking out of place while searching for a
We had a tornado in April, an earthquake on Tuesday, a drought all summer, and a hurricane arrives on Saturday. All I can figure is that Cary, NC has way too many sinners per capita. What's next -- pestilence? The BFD Makeover The BFD (and all SAS blogs) will now be
After a couple of solid days speaking to business leaders, listening to some of the world’s thought leaders and leading a panel discussion with the analytics leaders from DBS Bank, Allianz and Volvo Trucks, what have I learned about business analytics and what it takes to succeed? The first clue
The recent budget debate between President Obama and Congress reminded me of many of the discussions I observed during my years as State Controller and Deputy State Budget Officer in North Carolina. These discussions are related specifically to principles adhered to in budget development and budget deliberations by elected officials.
Rick Langston from SAS will be the keynote speaker for MWSUG 2011 (MidWest SAS Users Group) . Watch his short video for highlights of some of the great reasons to schedule your trip to Kansas City, Kansas, September 25 - 27.
You can generate a set of random numbers in SAS that are uniformly distributed by using the RAND function in the DATA step or by using the RANDGEN subroutine in SAS/IML software. (These same functions also generate random numbers from other common distributions such as binomial and normal.) The syntax
The highway system traversing the United States quietly hit a milestone last month with the 55th anniversary of the Federal Aid Highway Act. In 1956 President Eisenhower had a vision for our nation’s infrastructure; he knew that building an interstate highway system was vital, and expressed that “Together, the united
Registration is now open for the SCSUG 2011 (South Central SAS Users Group) educational forum to be held at the Sheraton Fort Worth Hotel and Spa in Fort Worth, Texas November 6 - 8. Whet your SAS tastebuds with this lineup of speakers: Keynote Address What’s New in SAS® 9.3 Rick Langston
NOTE: SAS stopped shipping the SAS/IML Studio interface in 2018. It is no longer supported, so this article is no longer relevant. When I write SAS/IML programs, I usually do my development in the SAS/IML Studio environment. Why? There are many reasons, but the one that I will discuss today
Are you a self starter? Do you prefer to work alone or with a group? Are you strangled by structure or supported by it? I promise this isn’t a viral Friday afternoon quiz. I ask these questions as I’m indulging in some minor procrastination. I’ve been busy all day preparing
The Platform Development team in SAS R&D has a vision for how SAS applications will be built and deployed in the future. It’s a vision that accounts for recent trends in cloud computing, high performance computing, open APIs and smart phone app stores. It’s also a vision that promises to
Some people search the Internet for a set of topics and then use the number of search results ("hits") for each topic to rank the relative popularity of the topics. At the 2011 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM), I had the opportunity to attend several talks by statisticians from Google and
As part of the staffing efforts for the new SAS Center for Health Analytics and Insights (CHAI), SAS recently hired Dr. Graham Hughes, MD, as the company’s first Chief Medical Officer (CMO). When I heard the news, I sent a few questions to Graham to learn more about the new
I've previously described ways to solve systems of linear equations, A*b = c. While discussing the relative merits of the solving a system for a particular right hand side versus solving for the inverse matrix, I made the assertion that it is faster to solve a particular system than it
This is your chance to be a part of what has made SAS Global Forum a focal point of innovation in the SAS community for more than three decades. Now through November 14, paper submissions are being considered in the technology and industry solutions tracks. It’s time to write up
I'm currently enjoying the Australian "winter" as I travel around the region talking to SAS customers for the SAS Insight Series. It just so happens that I was in Perth, Western Australia for Australia's Census Night. Because I was in the country on this special day, I was compelled
On July 28, the weather wasn't the only thing that was hot in Richfield, Minnesota. About 130 SAS users from the Twin Cities area braved the heat to attend a sizzling summer meeting of the Twin Cities Area SAS Users Group (TCASUG). Meeting organizers Donalee Wanna and Brian Kreeger proclaimed
This article describes the SAS/IML CHOOSE function: how it works, how it doesn't work, and how to use it to make your SAS/IML programs more compact. In particular, the CHOOSE function has a potential "gotcha!" that you need to understand if you want your program to perform as expected. What
In a business environment that is increasingly global and technological, many businesses are finding themselves subject to two significant challenges: If your product or service can be “made,” it can be copied and someone else can make it cheaper and/or better. Customers are becoming ever more knowledgeable about products, vendors
When I was at the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) last week, a SAS customer asked me whether it was possible to use the SGPLOT procedure to produce side-by-side bar charts. The answer is "yes" in SAS 9.3, thanks to the new GROUPDISPLAY= option on the VBAR and HBAR statements. For
The SAS/IML language provides two functions for solving a nonsingular nxn linear system A*x = c: The INV function numerically computes the inverse matrix, A-1. You can use this to solve for x: Ainv = inv(A); x = Ainv*c;. The SOLVE function numerically computes the particular solution, x, for a
It's always important to remember your fundamentals. Sort of like a basketball player who practices lay-ups and free throws for hours on end, you need the fundamentals in the midst of the game. Having the skills or knowledge in the heat of the moment - when it counts - is
Rome was not built in a day. Similarly, high-performance analytics is a product of many cumulative architectural, computational and analytical advances. The ability to solve complex business problems by applying algorithms from multiple disciplines to increasingly large volumes of data of all types - both structured and unstructured - is
Agility. I've been giving a lot of thought to the term while here in San Diego for the TDWI World Conference. "Evolving Your Agile BI Environment" is the theme of this year's event and "agility" has definitely been embedded in the conversations I have had with customers the past few
Contributed by Debbi Scheufler and Kelley Weston MWSUG 2011 Conference Chairs ~ MWSUG 2011 planning is coming together quite nicely. We have a great line-up of formal and informal presentations and discussions, posters, workshops and social activities planned for Sunday through Tuesday, September 25 – 27. There should be something
Update: While the SAS analogy still works, my calories-in/calories-out strategy didn't! But today I'm in the best health of my life by using food as medicine, a journey that began by working with a SAS registered dietitian nutritionist. Read this post for a window into my experience. I’m a data-entry
