Towards Diocesan Planning

An information system was developed for Blackburn diocese in the early 1970s, using data collected from several sources within the church. These data were then collated and made available to decision-makers within the diocese, at parochial, deanery and diocesan level. Using this information, a mathematical model of a parish as a system was constructed and examples are given of the uses of this in studying the consequences of changes in the characteristics of a parish, in an attempt to utilize fully the limited resources available to the diocese.     

Alternative Inventory and Distribution Policies of a Food Manufacturer

Alternative distribution strategies for delivering to a retailer's regional depots are compared. These include supplying all the manufacturer's warehouses from the factory and allowing every possible lateral transshipment with partial stock rebalancing over different time periods. The principal alternative is to have a hierarchical system. Effects of making emergency transfers to deliberately delayed delivery vehicles are evaluated. A data stream of actual demands for a typical product is used and forecasts are made over different time periods for production planning, warehouse allocations and transshipments. The conclusions are examined for various production frequencies and levels of stock cover.     

The Morals of Markets

Journal of the Operational Research Society -     

Applications of Queueing Theory

Journal of the Operational Research Society -     

Winkler on Marketing Planning

Journal of the Operational Research Society -     

Applications of Operational Research in Marketing

The pricing and selling of industrial products are considered in sections on decision theory, bidding and personal selling. It is suggested that the marketing of consumer durables and semi-durables can be studied by means of models which use aggregate data but that consumer panel data are needed for modelling consumer expendable markets. Finally, some problems which might be suboptimized are indicated.