Galapagos, Prayon and FPS Finances win a SAS Analytics in Action award; LACO receives the Partner Award

Out of several successful projects, SAS selected three winners to receive an award at the SAS Curiosity Forum. They each have transformed important processes in their organisation thanks to new insights derived from analysis of data and artificial intelligence. This year Galapagos, Prayon and Federal Public Service Finances win an “Analytics in Action” award. LACO is the SAS Belux Partner of the year.

Galapagos was awarded for acting as a pioneer by adopting the SAS Life Science Analytics Framework 5.1 and also using the Frankfurt data center. The award was collected by Hugo Hartmans, head of Biometrics at Galapagos. The biotechnology company specializes in the development of therapies that have the potential to revolutionize existing treatment paradigms, focusing on the discovery, development and commercialization of medicines that will improve people’s lives.

Galapagos sought an integrated and robust platform that could foster collaboration, trial reproducibility, regulatory compliance, as well as handle the company’s metadata and study standards. “We have raised the bar for ourselves and for SAS”, says Hartmans. “The project was a success because we wanted to make it happen together, as partners in a long term collaboration”.

Prayon received an award for project P15, in which data analytics were used to optimize the company’s processes.

Marc Senterre, ICT Director, and Yves Caprara, CEO, explained they were looking for a way to increase the efficiency of processes, as well as the quality of their products. A first test with advanced analytics yielded considerable efficiency gains in the production of raw materials for batteries. Prayon then started a second successful analytics project that allowed them to improve the quality of calcium phosphate, a by-product of the production of phosphoric acid, in order to meet customer requirements. The third step in this project will be to valorise the models Prayon developed for this purpose by launching an optimization platform that can be used by all phosphate plants in the world.

For Prayon, this is a way to grow globally and stay competitive. Big data and artificial intelligence will aid them to lower production costs and improve processes.

Federal Public Service Finances won an award for project Aurora, a personal income tax simulation model. Thanks to advanced SAS analytics, the government service is supported to answer each tax question containing detailed ‘what if’ scenarios. The effect of new tax measures can now be calculated very quickly, and the results can be presented in a user-friendly manner.

It also allows them to answer parliamentary questions in a nuanced way or to accurately predict the impact of budgetary measures.

Chris Delaere, Head of the Staff Department Policy Expertise and Support, and Dierk Op ‘t Eynde, Sr. Data Scientist at FPS Finances, were present to collect the award.

SAS Belux partner of the year

LACO was named SAS Belux partner of the year. With over 32 years of experience in BI, LACO is one of the most experienced companies on the Belgian market. As the very first partner of SAS Belgium in 1994, the company has since proven its SAS expertise to guarantee customers, such as Federale Verzekering/Fédérale Assurance, very successful analytics projects.

Almost half of LACO’s 110 consultants are experts in SAS. They are dedicated to helping businesses in a wide variety of industries to leverage the untapped power of data and navigate them in the digital realm. Instead of focusing on pure innovation for innovation, LACO wants to deliver sustainable and reliable solutions, while using the powerful SAS suite. LACO is built around partnerships, not only with SAS, but also with their employees and their customers. This yields the successes that have characterized them in recent years.

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