Daitum

Daitum is an Adelaide-based artificial intelligence software company that sells a cloud SaaS optimisation platform built on prescriptive analytics. The platform applies libraries of optimisation algorithms to operational planning problems, trialling large numbers of candidate solutions to produce recommended decisions for questions such as how to staff a roster, schedule maintenance work or manage inventory. It is positioned for non-technical users, so that customers do not need specialist optimisation or mathematical skills to configure and run models.

The product has three main elements: a Solution Builder portal in which users model problems themselves; Template Solutions, pre-built configurations for common problems such as rostering, inventory management and mobile workforce scheduling that the company says can be produced in days; and an integration API used to connect the optimisation engine to enterprise systems including Xero, SAP and Salesforce. The platform runs on Microsoft Azure, using Australian-based Azure servers, with compute and storage scaled to the size of the optimisation task. Reporting and analytics functions expose model performance to users.

Application areas advertised by the company span rostering (childcare, pathology, aged care, hospitality, hospitals and in-home care), maintenance scheduling and supply chain work including warehousing and inventory management. Published customer examples cite outcomes such as fewer rostered hours, faster roster and schedule construction, reduced distance travelled in warehouse picking, and reduced constrained capital in inventory.

Founding story

Daitum was established in 2017 by a group of PhD-qualified specialists in artificial intelligence, with the stated aim of making prescriptive and decision analytics accessible to non-specialist users.

Business model

Software-as-a-service sold on a subscription basis, with pricing plans that vary by business size and feature set. Alongside self-service model building, Daitum builds configured template solutions for specific customer problems and connects the platform to customers' existing enterprise systems through an API.

Subscription fees for access to the cloud optimisation platform, with plan tiers depending on company size and features required.

Traction

The company reports more than 30,000 users benefiting from its technology, over 7 million decisions optimised for customers, and more than 50 different problem types solved on the platform. Customer case studies span pathology laboratory scheduling, childcare and clinical rostering, warehouse picking, food relief logistics, inventory optimisation and maintenance planning, with cited results including 8% fewer hours rostered, 25% reduction in distance travelled, 36% improvement in desired skill mixes, and payback in under four months in a clinical rostering deployment.

Latest developments

The company's current public positioning centres on AI rostering, with industry-specific solutions for childcare, pathology, aged care, hospitality, hospitals and in-home care, alongside maintenance scheduling and supply chain offerings.