We examine several methods for evaluating resource acquisition decisions under uncertainty. Traditional methods may underestimate equipment benefit when part of this benefit comes from decision flexibility. We develop a new, practical method for resource planning under uncertainty, and show that this approach is more accurate than several commonly used methods. We successfully applied our approach to an investment problem faced …
Improving Performance and Flexibility at Jeppesen: The World’s Leading Aviation-Information Company
Jeppesen Sanderson, Inc. maintains, manufactures, and distributes flight manuals containing safety information for over 300,000 pilots and 400 airlines worldwide. Its service deteriorated when a growing line of over 100,000 aviation charts overwhelmed its production system. We developed optimization-based decision support tools that improved production planning. Concurrently, we developed a method for evaluating investments in production technology. Our work reduced …
Jeppesen Uses a Dynamic-Programming-Based DSS to Manage Inventory
We developed a system for managing inventory at Jeppesen Sanderson, Inc., a major provider of aviation-information products. The system determines order quantities for charts used in flight manuals. These charts contain essential safety information that changes frequently, making standard methods for inventory management ineffective. We formulated the problem as a dynamic programming model and developed a simple heuristic-solution procedure for …