As mentioned in my previous blog posts, mathematics is incorporated in to absolutely everything in life. This idea was further embedded during a lecture on supply chain and logistics in maths. It was a three hour input, but It was honestly the best maths class to date. It was completely relevant, interactive and so much fun. This blog post aims to draw on points about fundamental mathematics on previous blog posts and how it is incorporated into demand planning.

Firstly, when we talk about supply chain and logistic planning, what springs to mind is food. Apart from the odd rumble of my stomach, there is actually some mathematical concept behind this all. lets take crisps for example. If we think about the bar code, it has a significant amount of numbers around it (see image below).

Within the red circle, is a best before date 06/11/10. The number to the side says 06:51 which would highlight the time where the big packet (if it is a multipack) was closed. The number code under 06:51 is 275 which means which day within the year it has been produced. These timings are absolutely crucial for the company to give an accurate sell by date which will prevent their customers from getting food poisoning. The fundamental mathematics behind this is predicting by using the numbers to provide an accurate time scale for consumption. To an extent, the fundamental mathematics behind it could be knowing the date and the days of the year. Furthermore, each packet of crisp has a certain weight which could identify that another aspect of fundamental mathematics is weight. Even when the small packets are being placed into the big multi-pack bag, there are still a specific number which is out in each bag. This takes the art of crisp making and manufacturing down to being able to count. Fundamentally, that is astounding. Come to think about it, think of all the activities that you could bring in to the classroom around crisps. Potentially you could go down the rout of how the crisps are made, what machinery is used to manufacture crisps and how they are programmed.. you could even take a stab at making your own crisps!! Of course, maths comes into every single one of those activities.

However, enough about crisps… the thought of them makes me hungry. To continue this idea of supply chain and logistics, we must talk about food miles (I am aware that I am talking about food again). A prime example of this is when Richard (our lecturer) had a job in Trinidad and Tobago where he worked with a logistic company which was responsible for transferring food around the island , and the tiny islands within the outer Hebrides. He spoke fondly a man who would work out the routs to take in order for the items to be delivered. This seems to be pretty straight forward… However, you would be wrong to think that. This man used to do all this through his head. It was therefore absolutely crucial that he was able to know the routs expertly, he would have to know how much petrol he would need for the lorry, he would have to know if the lorry needed to be transported onto a ferry in order to deliver. Where is the maths you ask? Well it all comes down to money. This man was able to work out how much money it would roughly cost him and the he was able to calculate how much profit he was going to make. It is very clear that this man had a PUFM in the sense that he was able to estimate the rout and how much money it was going to cost him. Not only this, he had to be able to pack the lorry in the most proficient was possible (i.e a poorly packed lorry is the difference between making two trips or one trip). Therefore, he would pack the lorry in a way that used tessellation. making sure all the boxes (or items) were able to be pieced together. I find this to be absolutely fascinating because the basic mathematical principles is in an actual concept which mathematics is so important. What I find more intriguing is that this gentleman was able to do it all in his head -I take my hat off to you sir!!  In addition cargo hold, it all boils down to profit and money. This is why companies will ensure that all their stock is being transported all at once. For example (see image below) This boat is made up cargo containers which are cuboidal. They can all tessellate together in order to take more stock to and from places at once – fascinating!! To find out ore on my thoughts on tessellation, please visit my blog post “Active Learning in Mathematics.”

Now in terms of demand planning, we were able to have a go with this ourselves. We had to form a team and we had a staring budget of £5000. We had to buy stock through different dates of the year (June to august, for example). We had a list of items that we could buy and sell on for a profit. We had to estimate (depending on the time of year) which stock that would potentially sell. The mathematics behind it was simple, but proved very tricky. Richard would tell us how the stock had sold in a percentage wise. We would then have to calculate the percentage of what we sold and carry on the remainder of what we didn’t sell. We would take our reading and then repeat this process again. It was probably the most fun I had every had in a maths lecture. There were so much fundamental mathematics that had to be addressed – such as money (spending to a budget and adding calculating the left overs by using a simple take away sum). In addition, the fundamental process of carrying over was quite tricky if you haven’t used it in a while. Furthermore, the use of simple percentages in working out how much money we had made was very interesting. HOWEVER, it has taken me up until now to realise that data handling is extremely important not just in mathematics, but also demand planning

I will say this again, ‘MATHS YOU HAVE AMAZED ME!!!’  in addition, you actually do this within the context of the class because I feel that this is so beneficial for children to understand and so they can continue there love for mathematics.