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EXAMINATION 21.09.2006 [print]
businesses
The mathematician business
Petrobras, Vale and 30 other companies want to hire the services of Aguinaldo Ri
cieri. Discover why
By Caroline Meyer
Professor Ricieri Aguinaldo, 49, is physical training, but his favorite chair, h
is passion is mathematics. On Sunday morning, Ricieri gathers a group of more th
an 300 people at a college of St. Paul to talk about numbers, equations and thei
r applications in day-to-day - a fun that lasts five hours and draws crowds of f
ollowers. During the week, he divides his time between two activities. The first
classes are administering the Instituto Tecnologico de Aeronautica (ITA) in Sao
Jose dos Campos Germano Lüders, which is also his home, an exotic construction
Ricieri to the castle: the style of medieval castles. The other are those who p
rovide professional consulting to companies disputed the size of Petrobras, Vale
do Rio Doce and Pirelli. Hooked on numbers and the type who speaks in fractiona
l derivatives with the naturalness of who discusses football, Ricieri became a d
ream for consumer companies. "I refused to work all week," says the professor, w
ho now consults for five companies, but has another 30 in line.
Who is Ricieri Name Aguinaldo Prandini Ricieri Age 49 years Education Graduate i
n Physics from the University of Sao Paulo to graduate in aerospace engineering
at ITA Main customers Pirelli, Vale do Rio Doce, Petrobras and a queue of over 3
0 companies The latest Consultancy charges cost three million dollars
The reason for such demand is that Ricieri is part of a category of professional
s increasingly valuable to the business world: it uses advanced mathematics to s
olve everyday problems. Through complex equations (fed by a large database), the
se experts are able to accurately identify the most efficient way of producing,
transporting or design a product. The technique is known worldwide as the "opera
tional research" and was until recently restricted to the finance department of
companies. The intensification of competition, the quest for efficiency and prod
uctivity, however, are making her out of this niche and is currently being used
in different areas - retail banking system, from industry to
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agribusiness. It's kind of job that pays well. In a recent advisory, Ricieri rec
eived 3 million dollars. "Companies do not want more software bundled. They want
customized solutions," he says. The quest for efficiency in different situation
s absolutely drove two giants of Brazil, Petrobras and Vale do Rio Doce, to seek
the services of Ricieri. The oil company was looking for a fuel that leaves the
least amount of waste in cars. The idea was to use innovation as an attractive
po for consumers. Thanks to the fame of "Geninho of mathematics," Petrobras call
ed Ricieri to find that mixture. For months, he and a multidisciplinary team ana
lyzed more than 200 samples with different compositions. There were hundreds of
charts and formulas to arrive at the ideal mix, already on the market today. In
the case of Vale, Ricieri was named - along with Roberto da Mota Girardi, a lead
ing expert in aerodynamics of Brazil - to solve a problem in the chimneys of the
units where the iron ore is melted. The challenge was to reduce the emission of
pollutants in these towers. For this, reproduced the dual system of pipes found
 in termite mounds - a process called two-phase flow. Sounds kind of crazy? Yes,
but it worked. Currently, Ricieri has been dedicated to improving the logistics
of an ethanol plant. The "guinea pig" in this case was the Plant Santo Domingo,
located in the city of Catanduva, in São Paulo. By equations huge - that take
hours to be processed in the company's computers - the mathematician was able to
combine more than 20 million variables such as type of fertilizer, a kind of ca
ne, planting location and logistics. The result was a more efficient system of p
roduction and transport that promises to the owners of the plant cost reduction
of 30% over the next five years. The method of "mathematical" also takes into ac
count fluctuations in the financial market. Thus, it is possible to predict whet
her there will be more profitable in the production of alcohol or sugar in a giv
en period. "This will be the most modern and efficient plant in Brazil," says Ro
drigo Sanchez€one of the owners of St. Dominic, a company that grosses 140 mill
ion dollars a year.
The MATEMATICA has been used successfully in business for a long time. Developed
countries, especially United States, Britain and Japan, have employed the techn
ique of "operational research" since the Second World War, when they were forced
to increase the productivity of their industries after the conflict. Over the y
ears the method has been employed continuously debugged and mathematics became i
ncreasingly sophisticated. The recent technological advances enabled the creatio
n of more powerful computers, capable of handling a larger universe of informati
on. Not coincidentally, math professionals are among the most popular in the Uni
ted States, a trend that should be repeated in coming years. According to estima
tes from the Ministry of Labor U.S. by 2010 should rise four times more jobs lin
ked to mathematical skills than the average of other professions. "It's the ques
t for increased productivity. The use of mathematical solutions enables the solu
tion to bottlenecks in the production chain, making the process more efficient,"
says engineer Hugo Yoshizaki, logistics expert and professor at the University
of São Paulo. Today, such a competitive weapon is a matter of survival for comp
anies.
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Corporations like Procter & Gamble, IBM, Philips, Bombardier, FedEx and Wal-Mart
have relied on mathematical equations to improve their production lines, logist
ics and even help in developing new products. "The mathematician has become a fu
ndamental part of research teams and business development," said Dimitris Bertsi
mas EXAMINATION, professor of operations research at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT). One sector that has been using the technique with increasi
ng intensity is the American auto industry. Shaken by a series of financial prob
lems, Detroit automakers have been using the mathematics in an attempt to improv
e its performance. Among them, General Motors. By means of complex equations, th
e GM engineers were able to identify - and resolve - bottlenecks in 30 assembly
lines, enabling the company to save over 2 billion dollars. Ford decided last mo
nth to increase its advertising budget by 30% after mathematical calculations sh
ow that could have sold 625 million dollars more if it had increased its budget
for advertising on the Internet from 2.5% to 6% of the total. In Brazil, althoug
h the search operation there since the '70s, only now is gaining business. And j
udging by the agenda Ricieri with incredible speed. "Some companies will have to
wait six months to a year to be met," he says, without false modesty.
Copyright © 2006, Editora Abril SA - All rights reserved. All rights reserved
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