Category Archives: Quantitative Methods

California could phase out diesel locomotives

Posted on May 1, 2023 by | Leave a comment

It’s not just trucks. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) wants to phase out diesel locomotives as well.

Diesel locomotives could well be a more insidious polluter than diesel trucks. They run through many disadvantaged areas, where the poorest live, and are subjected to particulate and greenhouse gas emissions. And particularly around ports, rail service is frequent and requires diesel locomotives to stand around waiting.

I think some regulation is a long time coming, and badly needed. If the feds won’t step up, let California be a leader.

Joanna Marsh·Thursday, April 27, 2023

California could phase out diesel locomotives – FreightWaves

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Posted in Logistics, Quantitative Methods, Rail, Sustainability

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Seven key takeaways about economic mobility

Posted on August 4, 2022 by | Leave a comment

Brookings has a great article about new research on economic mobility (preferably upward) and friends. If people tend to be willing to make friends across economic classes it’s a big boost to chances of economic mobility.

One great thing is the links to interactive maps showing what drives social capital. You can see them here.

Richard V. Reeves and Coura Fall Tuesday, August 2, 2022

Seven key takeaways from Chetty’s new research on friendship and economic mobility

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Posted in Labor Economics, Quantitative Methods

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Driving Risk Out of S&OP Forecasts

MIT’s Supply Chain blog presented a nice research study by Minhaaj Khan and Srideepti Kidambi and supervised by Dr. Tugba Efendigil.  Their study is a good example of using less data rather than more to design a simple readily explainable approach that increases profits while reducing errors in ordering.  It’s an easy win.  Will it work in all scenarios? No, probably not.  But it also doesn’t take long to try and implement.  Occam’s Razor in action. It’s interesting they did not even need to know about promotions to achieve their gains. In many businesses the promotions can wreck plans. But in this consumer product it turns out they don’t disrupt.

Big data can sometimes confuse us rather than enlighten.

scamit-logo  via Driving Risk Out of S&OP Forecasts

 

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Posted on February 2, 2019 by in Logistics, Quantitative Methods, Service Management, Supply Chains

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