Cliff T. Ragsdale teaches several courses for the Institute in the area of operations research, based on his best selling text “Spreadsheet Modeling and Decision Analysis.” One of Cliff’s special talents is making his subject, which can be quite challenging technically, widely accessible. His courses do not have flashy bells and whistles, but are consistently ratedContinue reading “Instructor Spotlight: Cliff Ragsdale”
Category Archives: Operations Research
Industry Spotlight: Package Delivery Business
Nothing better illustrates the encroachment of data science and analytics on the older “economy of tangible things” than the business of delivering packages. The use of analytics in package delivery is not new. Companies like UPS and Fedex are longtime users of operations research methods like optimization and simulation to route inter-city shipments, site newContinue reading “Industry Spotlight: Package Delivery Business”
Industry Spotlight: Package Delivery
Nothing better illustrates the encroachment of data science and analytics on the older “economy of tangible things” than the business of delivering packages. The use of analytics in package delivery is not new. Companies like UPS and Fedex are longtime users of operations research methods like optimization and simulation to route inter-city shipments, site newContinue reading “Industry Spotlight: Package Delivery”
100 years of variance
It is 100 years since R A Fischer introduced the concept of “variance“(in his 1918 paper “The Correlation Between Relatives on the Supposition of Mendelian Inheritance“). There is much that statistics has given us in the century that followed. Randomized clinical trials, and the means to analyze them, moved medicine fully into the modern, science-based era.Continue reading “100 years of variance”
Course Spotlight: Constrained Optimization
Say you operate a tank farm (to store and sell fuel). How much of each fuel grade should you buy? You have specified flow and storage capacities, constraints on what types of fuels can be stored in which tanks, prior contractual obligations about minimum monthly deliveries and incoming supplies, plus the opportunity to sell onContinue reading “Course Spotlight: Constrained Optimization”
Convoys
Ever wonder why, in World War II, ships in convoys were safer than ships traveling on their own? Most people assume it was due to the protection afforded by military escort vessels, of which there was a limited supply (insufficient to protect ships traveling on their own). Actually, most of the benefit came from theContinue reading “Convoys”