Innovative gas flow prediction software, created by Marquette's engineering program, was featured in an open house Friday in the Olin Engineering Center to showcase a new workspace and highlight its accomplishments.

Launched in 1993 by Ron Brown, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the project, GASDAY works with utility companies to predict how much natural gas is needed in an eight-day period.

Marquette was the first university to create a program of this kind.

"I started the project when Wisconsin Gas came to us for help," Brown said. "They wanted to know how much gas their consumers were going to use today and tomorrow."

Since then, Brown and Marquette students have been using weather forecasts and data provided by utility companies to forecast the amount of gas consumers will use. This allows companies to purchase natural gas more economically and accurately, thus reducing the costs for consumers.

"An article was printed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 1999 that showed for the first time the costs for utilities to run the program actually saved money," Brown said. "Wisconsin Gas was able to save their consumers almost $12 million."

GASDAY is already used across the country and is currently America's best-selling gas load estimation software, according to its Web site.

"We were the first and we're the best," Brown said. "Not only are we the most accurate, our software is the easiest to use."

Brown takes pride in giving back to consumers.

"What we're really doing is trying to save people money," Brown said. "Gas is really a regressive tax… and if we can lower people's gas bills, we can do a lot of good for the community."

The software is especially important in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"Twenty-one percent of the nation's gas comes from the Gulf of Mexico," Brown said. "As of (Sept. 6), 41.6 percent of the gulf was shut down… It's really going to hurt the utilities, because when you knock out 10 percent of your (national) production, prices will go up."

Brown does not foresee problems for GASDAY, though.

"More people will want to do a better job of forecasting, which increases our market," he said.

The project's software, in Microsoft Excel format, was created by students working with GASDAY. More than 100 undergraduate and graduate students have worked on the project since its onset.

"It's a wonderful opportunity for students to be involved in a reasonable realistic small business," said George Corliss, an electrical and computer engineering professor working on the project.

College of Engineering junior Patrick Ozimek agrees.

"It's really cool to work on stuff being used in the industry," Ozimek said. "It's a great opportunity to see how (engineering) is being used in the real world."

Friday's open house highlighted the work of everyone involved.

"A lot of people don't know what we do," Brown said. "We thought it would be a good opportunity to show people — and it's good for Marquette."

This article was published in The Marquette Tribune on September 13, 2005.