In this section we formulate a very simple problem, called TicTech, to illustrate the basic steps in writing a mathematical formulation.
Mr. Mip has been contacted by TicTech, an organization that is now going through a digital transformation and needs to make an important decision. They need to decide on the right type of technology that will support them making complex decisions as their business grow.
After reading a blog about technologies for decision-making, Mr. Mip arrived at three options:
- Consulting services
- Off-the-shelf software
- Purpose-built web applications (Apps)
By analyzing pos and cons of each technology in the context of TicTech, Mr. Mip derived in collaboration with the client a score to each technology as follows:
| Technology ID | Technology | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Consulting | 12 |
| 2 | Software | 17 |
| 3 | Apps | 25 |
What technology should be selected?
Because we need to write mathematical expressions, and LaTeX commands didn't get compiled in README files here in PyCharm by the time we wrote this, we use Jupyter Notebooks to write our formulations.
The formulation of the TicTech problem is in the tictech.ipynb Jupyter Notebook. Take your time to go over the formulation and understand what's happening.
Next, we will talk about the different classes of mathematical optimization.