Case Article—Swirltubs After-Market Product Inventory and Service Case
Michael Francis Gorman · INFORMS Transactions on Education · 2021
In the Swirltubs case, students apply expected value decision making to a knapsack problem for appliance repairmen. The case is based on a published research paper on work that was actually implemented for a major appliance manufacturer. The case features three parts: (1) problem understanding and definition; (2) optimization results for a small, test problem; and (3) creation and testing of a heuristic for a large-scale implementation that exceeds the limits of Microsoft Excel®. Optionally, an instructor can add risk-analysis simulation and reoptimization under uncertainty in subsequent parts of the project, making it a total of five parts. The case is highly interactive, owing to the relatively unstructured nature of the problem. I have implemented the case over a two- and three-week period format, with upper-level master’s in business administration or master’s in analytics students who have been exposed previously to optimization methods. It has been administered to dozens of students with generally positive feedback. History: This paper has been accepted for the INFORMS Transactions on Education Special Section on Cases Based on Real-World Projects from the INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics. Supplemental Matertial: Teaching Notes and Excel spreadsheet of solutions are available at https://www.informs.org/Publications/Subscribe/Access-Restricted-Materials .