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The chief executive officer of Fluitec Wind needs to devise a strategy for using predictive analytics to provide gearbox services to wind turbines operated by energy companies. As gearboxes have a 10 per cent chance of failure each year and replacements are costly, predicting and preventing such failure is a constant source of stress for wind farm owners. Fluitec Wind has access to a wealth of untapped data resources that could be used to diagnose gearbox health using existing wind turbine data without the need of additional monitoring and sensor hardware. However, the company faces many technical challenges in improving the accuracy of the predictive analytics and thereby commercializing the product.

In 2014, an Amazon stockholder wants to decide the long/short positions for several put options that would result in the lowest risk at the best possible return on her stocks. In particular, she is looking to generate as much return as the status quo strategy where no put options are used.

A Japanese management consultant company seeks to relocate some of its instructors for a period of between one and three months to Singapore in order to conduct its flagship course catering to Japanese expatriate managers. It must determine which instructors to select in order to minimize relocation costs while taking into account their productivity and availability and the number of courses booked over three future months. Cost minimization is crucial due to the expensive service apartment rentals in Singapore. The firm must develop an optimization template in order to make the best possible decision.

In 2010, the owner of a small air-passenger firm transports individuals and small groups to remote waterfront regions. The business serves two types of customers: private and public. The private customers can afford to pay more, while the public customers’ budget constraints limit what they can pay. The owner wants to set a single price that will maximize his expected revenue across both customer groups. A constraining factor is the plane’s limited capacity, which means the owner cannot accommodate all requests. In other words, after a flight has been sold out, seats may still be requested by customers who potentially might be willing to pay more. See supplement 9B13E014.

This is a supplement to 9B13E013.

End-of-month account closure at many firms often requires long work hours, which may lead to staff fatigue and attrition that will affect productivity and quality of work. This is true for GlaxoSmithKline’s Record to Report Finance team in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in August 2014. The company is a science-led global business that researches and develops a broad range of innovative products in three primary areas: pharmaceuticals, vaccines and consumer health care. The team in Malaysia has 40 employees who provide services including month-end accounts closure, financial reporting and analytics to business units operating in the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. At the end of every month, the team must perform within five days a sequence of 17 activities requiring varying man-hours. The activities must follow a specific flow according to information availability and must, for internal efficiency and quality control reasons, start and end on the same day. Is there a method by which management can help the team achieve work balance or minimize the number of work hours per day?

Hyrule Cinemas is losing money quickly and its owner must take steps to rectify the problem. Using survey data and general information about the business, three types of analysis can be completed: Van Westendorp, conjoint, and a decision tree. These analyses will enable Hyrule Cinemas to make the best decision possible about price points and location, thereby helping the company to become profitable. A student spreadsheet is available (see 7B14E012).

In October 2013, the Health and Human Services Secretary of the United States is tasked with making decisions about a website project, Healthcare.gov, that is a critical component in delivering the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” to the American people. The act is a cornerstone but controversial policy of the Obama administration aimed at increasing access to health care services by providing health insurance to uninsured Americans. Unfortunately, the project is over budget and late. Forced to roll out before it is ready because of political considerations, the website crashes, causing anger and frustration for users unable to sign on or get information about the program. Because the act never really had the support of Republican Party representatives, the failure of the website stokes a political storm that appears to have more to do with reopening a debate in the media about Obamacare than it does with the website launch issues. Also in the spotlight is CGI, a technology company headquartered in Canada that is responsible for the overall design, development and execution of the project.

Business happens in a network consisting of different firms who have correlations with each other. For example, an automobile manufacturer has many dealers in different locations. There are correlations between the manufacturer and the dealers and correlations among the dealers. Each firm’s decision on matters such as price influences the other firms’ profits. By using the concept of game theory, such a decision can be based on a reasonable rationale. Yet, to apply game theory to real-world problems, we must first understand the “game rules” in business through analyzing horizontal and vertical correlations between firms and how such features as information asymmetry affects the equilibrium solution.

GetClarity Inc. is a start-up firm that specializes in the accumulation, analysis and sale of various types of data, including the firm’s own data, which has been attained through an exclusive contract. The company’s current job involves working for an auto-manufacturing client to identify a potential location for a new dealership. Two young analysts conduct data analysis on the age of the area and the market size, based on the customer demographic data. An Excel spreadsheet for students is available (see 7B14E015).

Supplement to getGlarity (A) (see 9B14E015). An Excel spreadsheet for this supplement is available (see 7B14E016).

A manufacturer of over 75 grades of styrenic resins — used to make DVD cases, refrigerator trays, packaging materials and auto parts — faces a “transition loss” each time it switches production from one grade to another. A transition loss for each grade arises from the initial 16 metric tons produced, which are sub-standard and unsuitable for usage by customers. To the company, this implies a loss of resources (raw material and production cost) and a disposal fee ($10,000) to remove each sub-standard production.<br><br>The case illustrates a sample of 15 grades for which data on their requirements for machine time usage, raw materials and labour hours are provided, as well as their production cost, selling price and market demand. Some of these grades must also be sold jointly in specific ratios. A newly hired sales executive must present an optimization template that would meet the company’s production constraints and maximize its profitability. Which grades of styrenic resins should be produced? Furthermore, how much of each grade should be produced?

Mistral Energy is looking to build a $40 million power plant in close proximity to both the Alberta and Saskatchewan power markets. The Alberta market is deregulated and the price fluctuates hourly with supply and demand. The Saskatchewan market, on the other hand, is a regulated monopoly. Mistral Energy needs to understand into which market they should sell their power. Because the prices available in Saskatchewan are unknown, Mistral is particularly interested in what power price would make the company indifferent between markets. Additionally, because the power plant is roughly equidistant between Alberta and Saskatchewan transmission lines, it might be possible to choose between markets on an hourly basis. Mistral is interested in investigating the value of this inter-market connection. Unfortunately, for technical reasons, this switch is not instantaneous, and the plant must be shut down for 30 minutes before supplying power into the other market. Another challenge is predicting when the power price in Alberta will be greater than the contract price available in Saskatchewan. Because the future Alberta price is unknown and highly variable, the risk exists that high prices might not be sustained long enough for Mistral to realize any value.

A senior vintner at Landhills Winery (Landhills) has been put in charge of developing an optimal blending plan for the upcoming season. This assignment is the result of a recent Landhills board meeting where the chief executive officer presented her ideas regarding the use of analytics for enhancing profits while at the same time not affecting quality. Specifically, the use of resource optimization could significantly improve Landhills’s profitability. Industry reports have indicated that a growing number of major wineries are using analytics to assist in the wine-blending process. The board meeting concluded with the CEO tasking the senior vintner with developing an analysis and reporting back his findings to the board at next month’s meeting.

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., a US$15.4 billion company in 2012, has been the number one tractor manufacturer in India for the last 30 years. The agriculture tractor sale market in India is seasonal in nature and growing. To meet demand, the company has four manufacturing plants and 26 sales offices across the country; their main job is to coordinate supplies between its 800 dealers and the company. The sales offices provide a rolling tractor demand forecast for the current month plus two months in the future; it is used to determine the number and models of tractors to manufacture and to enable placing parts supply orders in advance. The deputy general manager of sales in the company’s Farm Division has been receiving an increasing number of complaints from irate dealers about the irregular and short supply of tractors from the company’s stockyards. This has created stress and low dealer satisfaction. The deputy general manager has decided to improve the demand forecasting of agriculture tractor sales and hence supply management.<br><br>Student spreadsheet 7B13D019 with data is available.

The head of Data Marketing Analytics and Mobile for Intel Asia-Pacific was reviewing the proposed media plan for the Catch & Win 2.0 campaign. The media purchase needed to be finalized quickly in order to be included in the current quarter’s budget, but he could not help feeling that the proposed spend across the markets and advertising types could be used more effectively. He thought that the key was to use the company’s own experience and data regarding social media engagement within their markets rather than to rely on the generalized industry metrics provided by the contracted media agency, and now he must improve the proposed media plan.

The emergency department of any large hospital is frequently subject to substantial patient crowding, a result of arrivals by foot and ambulance, and limited resources. The San Francisco General Hospital is particularly crowded due to its prominence as the only trauma centre in the city. As a result, it is on ambulance diversion almost 25 per cent of the time, more than any other hospital in the area. Hospital managers are looking for ways to alleviate emergency department crowding and ambulance diversion.

Two business-school grads are the co-founders of a technology startup that provides a mobile-based solution for automotive reviews. The case focuses on customer validation and on fitting a demand model to the aggregate sales data from the test versions of their product.

In 2009, the owner of a Broadway theatre has to figure out whether to switch to a new show or continue with the current one, which is not generating the revenue expected. He already has a new show booked to begin in five weeks; each new show requires a week of set-up time during which its producers pay rent to the theatre but there are no ticket sales. Is it worth closing the current show and replacing it with an unknown show for a very limited run? Or should he just let the current show continue until the new, already contracted show is set to begin? A freelance analytics consultant helps him solve the problem by analyzing past data on the weekly box office performance of shows.

Sinofert Holdings Limited, the largest comprehensive fertilizer enterprise in China, is trying to improve the profitability of its urea business. The company has invested a great deal of time and money but still reported losses in 2007 and 2009 and only a small profit in 2008. Sinofert both manufactures urea and purchases it from external suppliers, as well as distributing it to the provinces. Manufacturing costs, transportation costs, market prices, demand forecasts and manufacturing constraints are all known. An optimal distribution plan using linear programming can be compared to the plan derived by Sinofert management. Substantial profitability increases are shown to be possible, although the optimization reveals some issues with contract constraints. If the company is to make its urea business profitable, it needs a fresh look and a change in the way of doing business. The company’s chief analytics officer has been asked to look at the urea business and to provide recommendations to increase profitability.