Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Puzzle #1 for Conference

Greetings:

OK - the Einstein Puzzle is NOT a business problem BUT it represents a problem that is best solved by rules and/or constraints.  The complete description can be found  at http://www.stanford.edu/~laurik/fsmbook/examples/Einstein'sPuzzle.html and we will review the various solutions at the conference.  I would have suggested the venerable Monkey and Bananas (MAB) but that one is way too easy and has already been solved many times over.

However, if each sponsor / vendor takes the time to have someone construct an elegant solution in whatever tool is deemed most appropriate, then the attendees can see how a fairly complex problem can be solved using whatever tool is handy.  I'm sure that the times to run such a simple problem will be extremely fast but what we can see will be the elegance (or lack thereof) in each vendor's tool box.  

Comment at will - but for now I haven't heard any suggestions whatsoever from anyone.  :-)  Puzzle # 2 should be a bit more complex and without the guidance of Einstein's Puzzle.  More on that next month.

SDG
jco

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

James,

Here is a solution using ILOG OPL Studio and CP Optimizer:
http://blogs.ilog.com/brms/2009/02/16/einsteins-puzzle/

Sincerely,
Dan