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» Monte Carlo,
   where speed counts
» Using Monte Carlo simulation
   for cost risk analysis

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» A Stochastic Simulation
   Model for Dairy Business
   Investment Decisions

@RISK Modeling Tips
» Automating @RISK with VBA

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» Public Health
» Space Exploration

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One-day forum covering risk and decision analysis from all angles specific to the healthcare sector.
SAN DIEGO 31 March 2010
» Register Now

The first 2010 Palisade Risk Conference will take place in the Institute of Directors in London’s Pall Mall, and will cover a wide variety of innovative approaches to risk and decision analysis.
LONDON 14-15 April 2010
» Call for presentations
» Register now

» Australia
Sydney: 16-18 Dec 09

» Europe
London: 8-10 Feb 2010*
*New Course!

» North America
Atlanta: 17-18 Dec 09
San Diego: 26-28 Jan 2010
Ottawa: 9-11 Feb 2010
Orlando: 23-24 Feb 2010
Houston (Oil & Gas):
  1-2 March 2010
Denver: 23-25 March 2010
San Diego: Health Risk  Analysis Forum, 31 Mar 2010
Washington DC: 6-8 April 2010
Chicago: 20-21 April 2010

» Decision-Making and Quantitative Risk Analysis using @RISK
PART I
3-4 Feb, 11am-3pm ET
1-2 Mar, 1pm-5pm ET

PART II
16-17 Feb, 11am-3pm ET
15-16 Mar, 1pm-5pm ET

» Decision-Making and Quantitative Risk Analysis using the DecisionTools Suite
PART I
11-12 Jan 2010, 9am-1pm ET
12-13 Apr 2010, 11am-3pm ET

PART II
18-19 Jan 2010, 9am-1pm ET
26-27 Apr 2010, 11am-3pm ET

Palisade software is available in fully functional trial versions. Try @RISK or any of our software today!


The complete risk and
decision analysis toolkit


The world's most widely
used risk analysis tool
» @RISK for Excel
» @RISK for Project
» @RISK for Six Sigma


Visual decision analysis
for spreadsheets


Sophisticated neural networks for spreadsheets


Advanced statistical analysis for spreadsheets


The Innovative Optimizer
for Windows

Huffington Post:
@RISK Analyzes Bowl Championship Series
Sports Stats Expert Wayne Winston Breaks Down the BCS
In a 2007 Gallup Poll, 85% of the American public disapproved of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). In his most recent Huffington Post entry, author and sports expert Wayne Winston argues that the existing BCS does not crown legitimate champions. To illustrate his point, Winston uses @RISK to determine the chances that a BCS finalist would have won an 8-team playoff between 2001 and 2008. @RISK is used to play out an 8 team tournament 5000 times. He found that one of the BCS’ top two teams won only 50% of the time.

» Read the full analysis and arguments on Huffington Post
» Read more Wayne Winston on Huffington Post

San Diego, March 31, 2010
Join us for this one-day forum covering risk and decision analysis from all angles specific to the healthcare sector. From hands-on software training to real-world case studies presented by industry experts, you will learn new approaches to the problems you face every day. You will also see how new versions of @RISK, PrecisionTree, RISKOptimizer, TopRank, NeuralTools, StatTools, and other Palisade software tools work together to give you the most complete picture possible in your situation. Top-level consultants, industry practitioners, and Palisade experts will present to an audience of professionals from across the spectrum of business and research.

» Learn more and register

Institute of Directors, London, 14-15 April 2010
Following on from the resounding success of the last Palisade Risk Conference in London, which attracted over 110 attendees from industry and academia, the 2010 Palisade Risk Conference will be held 14-15 April. The event will be a two day forum covering a wide variety of innovative approaches to risk and decision analysis. Featuring real-world case studies from industry experts, best practices in risk and decision analysis, software training, and sneak previews of new software in the pipeline, the event is also an excellent opportunity to network with other professionals and find out how they’re using Palisade solutions to make better decisions.

» Learn more and register

Upcoming Webcasts
"Lean Six Sigma: History, Trends and Predictions"
Presented by Ed Biernat, President, Consulting with Impact, Ltd.
January 7, 2010, 11:00am ET
Lean and Six Sigma have been buzzwords for more than a decade. Some companies have thoroughly embraced the concepts and toolsets, others have dabbled, and the rest sit on the sidelines wondering, to borrow a phrase from a television ad from the ‘80’s, “Where’s the beef?” In this interactive webcast, we will briefly review what these strategies entail, who is using them and how, and then we’ll put on our prognosticator’s hat take a look at what the future may hold in store. We will review some of the latest “buzz” on the topic as well as recent research aimed at how well these methodologies are moving off the shop floor into wider application.
» Register now (There is no charge for this webcast.)

"Simulating the U.S. Economy: Where will we be in 100 years?"
Presented by William Strauss, President, FutureMetrics
January 28, 2010, 11:00am ET
There is an assumption of endless growth that drives all of our expectations for how our economy will be in the future. We all agree that zero or negative economic growth is bad, but we also know logically that 2% or 4% annual growth every year leads to an exponential growth outcome that is unsustainable. 

To see where this growth imperative will take us, we first have to see how we got to where we are today. This free live webcast first models the 20th century. The model is a simple production function that combines capital, labor, and the useful work derived from energy to generate the output of the economy. Complexity is contained in the solutions to the internal workings of the model. What is unique is that there are no exogenous economic variables. Once the equations’ parameters are calibrated, setting the key outputs to “one” in 1900 results in their time paths very closely predicting the U.S. GDP and its key components from 1900 to 2006. The experiment in this webcast is about the future. If the model can very closely replicate the last 100 years, what does it have to say about the next 100 years?
» Register now (There is no charge for this webcast.)

Palisade Blog Headlines
Monte Carlo, Where Speed Counts
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Apparently the real test of computer chip performance, that is, speed, is spreadsheet simulation. PC Magazine blogger Michael Miller put 4 new chips through a number of tests and noted certain ups and downs in performance. By the clock the chips ran at the same speed, but speed varied according to the kind of application. For Miller, what really sorted the good from the best, the merely speedy from the truly fast was running Monte Carlo software, especially running big models based in huge data sets--the kind of simulations that typically come up in energy distribution and reserve estimation and operations management in oil exploration and production...
» Read more

Using Monte Carlo Simulation for Cost Risk Analysis
Friday, October 30, 2009
Dr. Javier Ordonez just concluded a series of posts about contingency calculation in cost risk analysis. When performing a cost risk analysis study, one of the key results is the amount of extra monetary resources that is to be added to the project cost baseline to guarantee that the budget is not exceeded at a certain confidence level. Good project risk management strategies must take this into account. After defining the uncertain variables and risk events that affect the cost performance of the project, one can run a Monte Carlo simulation with @RISK to find out what the range of the total project cost is.
» Part I: Contingency Calculation in Cost Risk Analysis
» Part II: Allocating Contingencies to Uncertain Cost Elements
in a Cost Risk Analysis Model
» Part III: Allocating Contingencies to Risk Events
that were identified in a Risk Register

Subscribe to the Palisade blogs.

A Stochastic Simulation Model for
Dairy Business Investment Decisions
Presented by Dr. Jeffrey Bewley of the University of Kentucky
at the 2009 Palisade Conference in Jersey City, NJ, October 21, 2009

A dynamic, stochastic, mechanistic simulation model of a dairy enterprise was developed to evaluate the cost and benefit streams coinciding with investments in Precision Dairy Farming technologies. The model was constructed to embody the biological and economical complexities of a dairy farm system within a partial budgeting framework. A primary objective was to establish a flexible, user-friendly, farm-specific, decision-making tool for dairy producers or their advisers and technology manufacturers.

The basic deterministic model was created in Microsoft Excel. @RISK was employed to account for the stochastic nature of key variables within a Monte Carlo simulation. Net present value was the primary metric used to assess the economic profitability of investments. The model comprised a series of modules, which synergistically provided the necessary inputs for profitability analysis.

Investment decisions for Precision Dairy Farming technologies can be analyzed with input of herd-specific values using this model.

» Download the presentation

Automating @RISK with VBA
Presented by Dr. Chris Albright of
Indiana University at the 2009 Palisade Conference in Jersey City, NJ, October 21, 2009

Indiana University MBA professor Chris Albright, author of VBA for Modelers demonstrates what it takes to automate @RISK with VBA for Excel using two examples. The first is a general template for any simulation model, and the second is a useful program for grading students’ @RISK models. If you know VBA for Excel, the battle is more than half over; the same basic language still works. All you have to learn is the object model of @RISK. If you can see the benefits from using this programming functionality often, the VBA approach should be well worth the time it takes to master.

» Download the presentation
Download the examples

e-Commerce
Despite the Recession, Online Fraud Takes a Dip in 2009
Technique: Decision tools   » see DecisionTools Suite 5.5
Source: Digital Transactions, December 3, 2009

One reason there has been a decline in online fraud during the past year is the increased use of automated decision tools by online retailers.

Public Health
Swine Flu: How Bad Was the First Wave?
Technique: Monte Carlo Simulation   » see @RISK 5.5
Source: ScienceBlogs, October 30, 2009

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and the Harvard School of Public Health coupled a simple multiplier method with Monte Carlo simulation to calculate the extent of the first wave of Swine flu.

Space Exploration
AI Spacesuits Could Turn Astronauts into Cyborg Biologists
Technique: Neural Networks   » see NeuralTools 5.5
Source: Wired News, November 2, 2009

A Hopfield neural network will drive the vision of a University of Chicago geoscientist in his creation of a spacesuit with the ability to discern forms of life on other planets.