Structured Decisions Corporation

...the three most important activities of corporate executives. Their dollar consequences can be enormous and their quality and timeliness can make or break your business. Structured Decisions Corporation (SDC) helps busy executives by creating systems that implement day-to-day decisions. We focus on those that are mission critical, repetitive and rooted in the complexities of your operations.

Usually, the systems SDC builds are computer-implemented and often embody a detailed mathematical model of your firm's operations.

APPLICATIONS:

	Developing emergency response planning tools for homeland security
	Revenue management for services firms - how much product to offer at what price to each market segment.
	Sizing and scheduling of retail sales workforces
	Analysis and management of customer waiting lines in service environments
	Routing, scheduling and sizing of truck fleets
	Design of routes and scheduling of delivery personnel
	Evaluating the impact of federally-funded justice programs
	and much more

What is the RQI? As the evaluator of federally-funded criminal history records improvement programs, SDC developed a state and national Records Quality Index (RQI). Like the Dow Jones Index of 30 bell-weather stocks, the RQI - based on a small set of key measures - characterizes the performance of large-scale criminal history systems.

NCHIP Program Managers and state criminal history records managers: Login to enter your state's RQI data or to obtain your state's RQI results.

- FEATURES -

	On Sunday November 22, SDC's Chairman, Dr. Richard C. Larson, also known as Dr. Q (see Dr. Q's corner below), was interviewed about the science and psychology of waiting in line in the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. With 'Black Friday' looming, Dr. Q offers valuable 'retail therapy' shopping insights and Q-tips.
	Speaking of queueing, SDC is currently working with the City of New York to help shorten the delay between the time a person is arrested and his/her first appearance before a judge (the 'arraignment'). The City's arrest to arraignment system is a complex set of interconnected queues of people and paperwork.

In Dr. Q's Corner, we share queueing experiences and important Queue Tips to help others avoid waiting lines or make the wait more tolerable. See our current paper on Queueing in US Presidential Elections.

We also propose queue situations we want YOU to respond to, such as Queue Rage. You have heard of Road Rage; Queue Rage can sometimes occur when a waiting customer experiences what she thinks is unfairness in line behavior, such as violation of first-come, first-served. Here is an extreme example. We know of other examples involving guns and knives such as the incident described by an Orlando Sentinel reporter who interviewed Dr. Q.

Question: Have you ever become so angry in a queue that you felt that you were experiencing Queue Rage? If so, please tell me about it. Next month, I will comment on your replies.

May all your queues be short! And without rage! :-)

- Richard C. Larson, Dr. Q