ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · Big data and data analytics
Halden Logistics wants its analytics system to automatically recommend, each morning, the delivery routes and vehicle allocations that minimise fuel cost while meeting delivery windows, taking forecast traffic and orders into account. Which type of analytics, and which technique, best matches this requirement?
Prescriptive analytics using optimisation and simulation fits best. The system must recommend the best routes and vehicle allocations to minimise fuel cost subject to delivery windows. Forecasting orders is only predictive, while visualisation and drill-down of past deliveries are descriptive or diagnostic and do not recommend actions.
- ADescriptive analytics using data visualisation of last week's routes
- BDiagnostic analytics using drill-down into late deliveries
- CPredictive analytics using regression to forecast order volumes only
- DPrescriptive analytics using optimisation and simulationCorrect
Explanation
Recommending the best action under constraints (minimise cost, meet windows) is prescriptive analytics, typically using optimisation and simulation. Regression forecasting of orders is only one input and stops at prediction. Visualisation and drill-down look backward.
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