S03 · stakeholder simulation

Catering wants the exact meal count three days out

People, data and outputs in this scenario are simulated. Each stage is recorded when you commit; the reveal comes after.

4stages
35 minabout
0stages committed

The brief

A synthetic airline (simulated company) orders meals from a caterer three days before each departure. The head of catering operations (simulated) says: "Give me the exact number of meals for every flight three days out; right now we order bookings plus a buffer and we throw a lot away." The finance controller (simulated) adds: "And no more emergency uplift charges."

Booking snapshots and passenger counts below come from the course's synthetic airline database, where booking curves are far more regular than real ones; real errors would be larger and need re-estimating. Unit costs are hypothetical.

Stage 1 of 4

The supplier cut-off is 3 days before departure and cannot move this quarter. At that time you know the bookings made so far; cancellations and no-shows still to come are not known. The data engineering lead (simulated) says booking snapshots are available at 7, 3, 2 and 1 days out, each by 06:00.

What do you establish before agreeing to anything? Select all that apply.

What each kind of error costs: a meal that is ordered and unused, and a passenger left without one.What is known at the cut-off and how much uncertainty remains then, for example bookings that still cancel or fail to show.Whether meals come in fixed trolley or case sizes, which changes what an order can be.Whether the airline will move the cut-off later, as this changes the achievable accuracy and the cost.Whether bookings and passengers in last year's data are labelled with the same airport codes, so the two tables can be joined.