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Attracting over 125 delegates, the April event in London was a big success. We look for-ward to exciting presentations at the next three conferences, scheduled around the world.
» Sydney: 20-21 Oct
» Las Vegas: 4-5 Nov
» Lima, Perú: 9-10 Nov

» North America
Philadelphia: 29-30 June
Memphis: 7-8 July
St. Paul: 13-15 July
Ithaca, NY: 27-28 July
Seattle: 3-5 August
Toronto: 17-18 August
Denver: 1-3 Sept
Charlotte, NC: 14-15 Sept
Montreal: 28-29 Sept
Boston: 12-13 Oct
Chicago: 26-28 Oct
Dallas: 3-4 Nov
Richmond: 16-17 Nov
Redondo Beach, CA: 1-2 Dec
Atlanta: 13-14 Dec

» Asia-Pacific
Melbourne: 7-8 July
Brisbane: 20-21 October
Melbourne: 10-11 November
Perth: 1-2 December
Sydney: 8-10 December

» Latin America
Guayaquil-Ecuador:
  22-24 de junio
Panamá, Panamá: 7-9 de julio
Bogotá, Colombia:
   28-30 de julio

» Brasil
São Paulo: 22-24 de junho
Rio de Janeiro: 28-30 de junho
Rio de Janeiro: 20-22 de julho
  (@RISK for Project)



» Decision-Making and Quantitative Risk Analysis using @RISK
PART I
12-13 July, 11am-3pm ET
9-10 Sept, 1-5pm ET
11-12 Nov, 9am-1pm ET

PART II
19-20 July, 11am-3pm ET
20-21 Sept, 1-5pm ET
22-23 Nov, 9am-1pm ET

» Decision-Making and Quantitative Risk Analysis using the DecisionTools Suite
PART I
14-15 June, 11am-3pm ET
10-11 August, 11am-3pm ET
5-6 Oct, 9am-1pm ET
7-8 Dec, 11am-3pm ET

PART II
21-22 June, 11am-3pm ET
23-24 August, 11am-3pm ET
19-20 Oct, 9am-1pm ET
20-21 Dec, 11am-3pm ET

» Project Risk Assessment Using @RISK for Project
26 July, 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

BC Hydro uses @RISK to calculate uncertainty of electricity-conservation projects

With $5 billion in revenue and 1.7 million customers, BC Hydro is the largest electricity supplier in British Columbia, Canada. As a regulated public utility, BC Hydro is required to submit for approval long-term energy plans on how to meet customers' growing demand. BC Hydro faces a growing gap in electricity supply, and its current plans are to meet its future supply needs preferentially through Demand Side Management (DSM), or energy conservation. Over the next 20 years BC Hydro intends to meet almost 75 percent of its incremental demand requirements through DSM. This is one of the most aggressive targets in North America.

BC Hydro has used Palisade's risk analysis software @RISK for electricity load forecasting for many years; this use was expanded to the DSM program. @RISK was used to capture the level of uncertainty of the estimated savings for each individual DSM project. Around 60 projects were analysed on a case-by-case basis, and a probability distribution around the aggregate DSM savings forecast was developed.

» Read the full case study

Palisade is pleased to announce its 2010 Conference on Risk Analysis, Applications, and Training. This year we’re moving to a fantastic new location where risk analysis is performed around the clock – Las Vegas! The event will be held November 4-5, 2010 at the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino on the Vegas Strip. Every year the Palisade conference has grown in attendance and scope, and we are building on that success with another great program filled with real-world case studies, software training, and model building. There will be something for everyone at the Palisade Conference, with sessions drawing on expert experience in fields such as energy, finance, insurance, manufacturing, project management, health care, and much more. The latest versions of @RISK and the DecisionTools Suite software will be featured, as well as a sneak peek at what’s coming next.

This is one of a global series of Palisade Risk Conferences taking place in London, Sydney, Lima, and Las Vegas in 2010.

» Register today
» Call for Papers: Contact Jameson Romeo-Hall at
   jromeo-hall@palisade.com if you are interested in presenting

Following the resounding success of our last Palisade Risk Conference in Sydney, which attracted over 60 attendees from industry, academia and government, Palisade is pleased to announce the 2010 Palisade Risk Conference which will take place on 20-21 October 2010. The location will be at The Radisson Plaza Hotel Sydney. We have attracted a number of outstanding presentations in past events and look forward to bringing more interesting presentations this year surrounding various applications of our modelling and decision support tools.

This is one of a global series of Palisade Risk Conferences taking place in London, Sydney, Lima, and Las Vegas in 2010.

» Register today
» Call for Papers: Contact Mark Meurisse, Managing Director, at
   mmeurisse@palisade.com if you are interested in presenting

Upcoming Webcasts
"Customised Solutions Using @RISK and VBA for Excel "
Presented by Rishi Prabhakar, Palisade Corporation
June 23, 2010, 11:00am ET
This free live webcast will explore the use of VBA for Excel to control @RISK functionality to simplify the process of risk analysis for resource-strapped businesses. We will explain the advantages (and limitations) of macro control for modelling and running simulations.

Simple examples will be worked through to show the XDK (@RISK’s automation library) in action, from generic examples to a cost estimation model. This addresses elements of model construction, various simulation settings and finally reporting. The emphasis is on exposing the attendees to the various possibilities the XDK lends to the user rather than an in-depth VBA for Excel coding session.
» Register now (There is NO CHARGE for this webcast.)

"Why be Normal? Selecting the Best Distribution Models "
Presented by Andy Sleeper, President, Successful Statistics LLC
July 15, 2010, 11:00am ET
Distribution models are important aspects of many types of statistical analysis, including Monte Carlo analysis. The choice of model is vitally important, since the wrong model can be worse than no model at all. But with dozens of distribution families to choose from, the choice of distribution model can be confusing and mystifying. This free live webcast takes the mystery out of distribution model selection and explains the powerful tools built into @RISK and StatTools. How often have you wondered which type of graph is best suited for selecting distribution models? Which goodness-of-fit test is best for you? Is Kolmogoroff-Smirnov a new kind of vodka? All this and much, much more shall be revealed with demonstrations of Palisade software during this unique webcast.
» Register now (There is NO CHARGE for this webcast.)

Palisade Blog Headlines
Health Care Management: Decision Making at Two Levels
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Reading recent reviews of two books on healthcare caused me to realize that in spite of the rapidly increasing number of clinical studies that use risk analysis and neural networks to sort out the best treatment choices, there has been very little published on how to use quantitative tools like decision trees and Monte Carlo software to manage health care better. Given the recent national debates on health care reform, this is actually quite surprising.
» Read more

Another take on the BP Oil Spill
Friday, May 28, 2010
Much has been said about the disastrous BP oil spill in New Orleans. If we use the theory of probability and reliability then have too many different companies responsible for a very complex construction and operation added to the chance of failure.
» Read more

Subscribe to the Palisade blogs.

The Economics of Supply Chain
Risk Management Using @RISK
Presented by David Inbar and Steven Bechhofer
at the 2010 Palisade Risk Conference, London

Supply chain risk management is an emerging field which has been growing significantly in importance because of modern management concepts such as lean, globalization and outsourcing. The mutual dependencies and close collaboration in modern supply chains create unique risks and challenges. Supply chain risk management is an economic process and choosing the elements and amount of risk mitigations should be based on economic measures.

This case study gives an overview of the concepts and process of supply chain risk management and demonstrates how using Monte Carlo simulation techniques with @RISK adds value to the decision making processes and enable us to purchase the most cost effective mitigations.

» Read the full case study

When Modeling, Correlations Can Be Critical

Modeling from empirical data takes observed information and attempts to replicate that information in a set of calculations. There are a number of relationships to account for when incorporating those data in a model. These relationships include dependencies and/or correlations. Correlations are often omitted for a variety of reasons, which can lead to critical errors in your results. Whether the correlations are direct or aggregate, involving simple mathematics or greater complexities, ultimately the model is likely to be used in some form of analysis for projecting future outcomes. The knowledge brought to the model and the analysis with embedded correlations improves knowledge about inherent uncertainty in a given problem.

Correlation is a principal relational element which describes relationships between variables in datasets. There may be general tendencies and patterns which drive the input risks to move together or differently from each other. It is these relationships between variables which need to be expressed in a model to bolster its usefulness — which is accomplished with correlation. It is important to remember there may be observed correlation between variables but it is not necessarily a causal relationship; it may be only a general tendency of paired behavior. Ignoring such relationships could result in disastrously inaccurate results.

» Read the full tip: "The Paradox of Knowledge"
» Download @RISK example models illustrating how to
   represent correlations in Excel

Alternative Energy
Wind Power Can Make Sense For Utilities
Technique: Monte Carlo Simulation   » see @RISK
Source: RedOrbit, May 25, 2010

To see if wind power would fit into a profitable power-delivery model, MIT researchers built a Monte Carlo simulation model of the grid.

Astronomy
Computer Program Learns to Sort Galaxies Like a Human
Technique: Neural networks   » see NeuralTools
Source: Space.coml, June 1, 2010

An artificial neural network can now help flesh-and-blood stargazers with the daunting task of classifying billions of galaxies.

Software
Energy Management for the Enterprise
Technique: Decision analysis   » see DecisionTools
Source: TMCnet, June 3, 2010

The latest entrant in the field of “smart” products is a suite of decision analysis tools that focuses on corporate-wide energy use.