June 6, 2011 in Thinking Analytically
The Traveling Spaceman Problem
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https://doi.org/10.1287/LYTX.2011.03.14
When confronted with complex business analytics problems that beg for mathematical modeling, the reactive first response is, “Show me the data.” However, based on one of the recurring themes that came out of the recent INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics & Operations Research held in Chicago, the proper first response is, “Tell me about your business.”
|
Coordinates |
|||
|
Galaxy |
x |
y |
z |
|
a |
26 |
38 |
30 |
|
b |
75 |
6 |
55 |
|
c |
3 |
46 |
66 |
|
d |
73 |
59 |
75 |
|
e |
37 |
72 |
7 |
|
f |
42 |
83 |
67 |
|
g |
21 |
77 |
91 |
|
h |
80 |
18 |
4 |
Table 1: Coordinates for nine galaxies.
Questions:
- Starting (and ending) at galaxy “a,” in what order should you visit each galaxy to minimize the traveled distance? You must visit each galaxy and you cannot visit any galaxy more than once.
- What is the total distance traveled?
Hints:
- Larger galaxies indicate that they are closer to your viewpoint.
- This problem can be solved using AMPL.
Send your answer to [email protected] by July 15. The winner, chosen randomly from the correct answers, will receive an “Analytics: Driving Better Business Decisions” T-shirt.
John Toczek is the AVP Predictive Modeling at Chubb in the Decision Analytics and Predictive Modeling department. He earned his BSc. in Chemical Engineering at Drexel University (1996) and his MSc. in Operations Research from Virginia Commonwealth University (2005).