Creating software to compute the optimal number of newspapers to deliver to each sales outlet

Abstract

The purpose of the project is to develop a method to calculate the optimal number of newspapers to deliver to each of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s 7500 sales outlets on each day of the week. The optimization model takes into account sales and advertising revenues, printing costs, recycling revenue, the possibilities of theft and shrinkage, and the distribution of demand, which in turn is estimated from data and takes into account censored data, theft, location, day of the week, price, and other covariates.