AISB / IACAP World Congress 2012 Birmingham , UK , 2 - 6 July 2012 1 st Symposium on Nature Inspired Computation and Applications ( NICA )

A three way collaboration between industry and two UK universities led to the development of an intelligent spend analysis system. In this paper we outline how a novel combination of the ‘Decision Tree’ and ‘Bayesian Classifier’ algorithms, working with ‘big data’ on a real world e-procurement problem, led to the development of sophisticated, A.I. driven, intelligent spend analysis software, subsequently commercially marketed throughout the UK as the ‘SpendInsight’ system; a system recently deployed by the UK-National Audit Office (NAO) to highlight potential savings to UK-National Health Service (NHS) procurement of £500 million per annum [14]. We subsequently investigate how deep-rooted ‘institutional inertia’ can often work to inhibit the full realisation of the potential economic benefits to an organisation that should accrue from the deployment of intelligent Two algorithms identified in the CFP to be of specific relevance to the 2012 NICA (Nature Inspired Computing Applications) symposium. spend analysis. Finally we demonstrate how, by linking the institutional roll-out of intelligent spend analysis to an overarching green policy agenda, such barriers may be overcome. We conclude the paper by showing (perhaps counter-intuitively) that at the societal level a strong green policy agenda may realise significant benefit for both the environment and the economy.