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Assignment

Demand Planning & Fulfillment

Homework 2: Read, Explore, Calculate, and Explain

Due Saturday, · Estimated time: 90–120 minutes

Question 1 — 20 points: interpret the provided delivery graph and simple coefficient table in your own words.

Question 2 — 30 points: upload a raw CSV to a blank Colab notebook, write your own prompts to obtain the regression table and fitted line, and explain your prompts, the results, and an AI interpretation.

Question 3 — 50 points: use your own AI conversation to learn how a best-fit line is calculated and why the method is reasonable. Then hand-calculate the line for five small data points and draw it on paper using a ruler. Explain your learning, calculation, and judgment of the method.

Question 4 — optional extra credit: use the two simple diagrams to give one management example for subtraction and one for multiplication. Explain the two sides and why doing too much might become harmful. Completing it satisfactorily multiplies your score on Questions 1–3 by 1.05.

Submit Word or handwritten answers with screenshots. Question 3's calculation and ruler-drawn graph must be handwritten. No confidence intervals or hypothesis tests are required.

Read Homework 2 + optional article (PDF)Download all original files (ZIP)

Discussion

Extra

Demand Planning & Fulfillment

Linear Programming in Supply Chains

Handwrite both models. You may use Google Colab to draw the graph.

Watch Linear Programming (LP) — Introduction in Canvas to review the model and graph.

Question 1: Where Does the Best Shipment Lie?

A relief organization is sending food and water after a tsunami. A food container weighs 30 pounds, occupies 8 cubic feet, and provides 8 daily food servings. A water container weighs 120 pounds, occupies 2 cubic feet, and provides 12 daily water servings. The aircraft can carry up to 24,000 pounds and has 4,000 cubic feet of cargo space. The goal is to maximize total daily aid servings, counting food servings and water servings separately.

Handwrite the LP model. Draw the constraint lines and shade the feasible region. Then guess where the total aid delivered peaks: circle your predicted best point and explain it in one or two sentences. Colab is allowed for plotting; an optimization solver is not needed.

Question 2: Build Your Own Truck-Loading Model

A distributor needs to send two products from a warehouse to stores, such as bottled water and paper towels. Both products share the same delivery truck, so weight and space may limit what can be shipped.

Search for a few reasonable figures for the products' shipping weight, space requirements, and value, along with the truck's capacity. Industry averages, supplier listings, and equipment specifications are all acceptable; exact data from a particular company are not required.

Use those figures to handwrite a simple LP with two decision variables that chooses how much of each product to load and maximizes the value carried. Include your source links and briefly explain any simplifying assumptions. You do not need to solve this model.

Submit: your two handwritten models, the Question 1 graph and prediction, and the source links for Question 2. Use continuous quantities for this introductory exercise; whole-number restrictions are not required.

Question 1 is adapted from OpenStax, Contemporary Mathematics, Section 5.11, Exercise 24, using its published teaching inputs. The adapted Question 1 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Access the book for free.

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