Forecasting and Demand Planning

Most businesses are not able to plan ahead without some educated guess what the future will bring. Assessing future developments and action them is vital for every company. Forecasting is the process of making statements about events whose actual outcomes (typically) have not yet been observed. A example is estimation for some variable of interest at some specified future date. Prediction is a similar, but more general term. Some very handy Principles summarize useful knowledge about forecasting so that it can be used by researchers, practitioners, and educators. They're devoted to improving decision making by furthering scientific forecasting. Forecasting is used in demand planning in manufacturing, setting the directions for production and procurement. It is also used in supply chain forecasting and sales & operations planning (S&OP). In most companies the forecasting process is not only about the numbers, but also a means to reach consensus with stakeholders.

Sorting waypoints for faster routes

I am a salesman. I drive to many destinations daily. Not one or two, but fifty or more each day. I visit shops, sell my goods and earn a living from it. Of course I know how to drive the fastest route. The optimal order of stops comes naturally. Some mathematical scientists have spent their life on the so called travelling salesman problem. They call it a hard problem. But it is no problem for me. It's damn easy. You put all addresses in a big hat and pull one out after each other. Then you sort them on the zip code. In reverse that is. After that shuffle them twice and throw them in the air. Your cat (black preferably) will then pinpoint the fastest trip. Too much hassle? Even more efficient is to use this routeplanner for multiple destinations that sorts waypoints in the optimal order.