Elishberg, Swami, Weinberg, Wierenga, mplementing and Evaluating SilverScreener: ...," Interfaces, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp.

S108-127, (2001). 1. Explain the complexity of the issues faced by the theatre owner. Large no of movies from different regions of the world constitute the consideration set making it difficult to select the right mix of movies that should be screened. Difficulty in gauging the period for which movie should be screened. As the audience is segmented on the basis of interests, language bias etc. movies usually have short and decaying audience appeal which makes it even difficult to choose the right set of movies. Pressure from distributors to provide screens for new releases. Owners often base a number of theaters in the same geographical area hence the difficulty in managing interdependency among several facilities Contractual obligations from distributors to share revenue in first few weeks, play movie for a specific time period despite poor response from the audience

2. Explain the integrated framework used for the DSS implementation. The framework takes several factors into consideration Demand side: Favorable attitude towards MMSS. Majority managers involved were excited about the project and keen to see how it would perform. Availability of data to take estimation action Supply side: Excellent technical match was made between the decision problem and MMSS. Use of ICT combined with available marketing data and analytical capabilities made the simulation quite feasible Match between demand and supply: As managers had little or no knowledge of models and analytical methods, MMSS was provided external support. Design Characteristics: System was user friendly with instant access through internet which allowed decision makers to make timely decisions about forecasting demand. Characteristics of implementation process: Users were constantly involved with the system. Support was needed from the pathes team for successful implementation. Presence of an MMSS champion could contribute greatly towards the success of an MMSS as he would make efforts to support the system through several measures like making sure proper data is made available, results are shown to other team members etc.To avoid technical barriers hinder successful use of the model, it was run externally and recommendations were made to Pathes team. Results were available online immediately, also local persona assistance was made available.

3. Draw a flowchart of how the various models fit with each other in the DSS Integer programming a. Whether to schedule b. How many weeks Rolling horizontal approach c. Select movie that optimize results over next 8 weeks d. Reran model after 1 week e. Allowed for long run implications with recent data Screen allotment Heuristics f. Suggest only movies not screens g. Highest expected no of visitors - biggest screen

4. What is a dummy variable? A dummy variable is one that takes the values 0 or 1 to indicate the absence or presence of some categorical effect that may be expected to shift the outcome. Seasonal effects may be captured by creating dummy variables as done in the article. 5. How are profit margins estimated? Do you agree with the method? To estimate Rjiw, the profit margin a movie j generates for the exhibitor if it plays for i weeks starting in week w, GROSSjw, POPjw, and EXSHAREjw estimates are calculated appropriately over i weeks.

POPju = concession profits generated by movie j in Week u, GROSSju = box-office gross revenue generated by Movie j in Week u, and EXSHAREju = exhibitors share of the box-office gross revenue of Movie j in week u. GROSS jw= ATP * VISITORjw VISITORjw denotes number of visitors for movie j in week w,ATP is avg ticket price,* Tax deduction factor POPjw= Contribution Per Visitor *VISITORjw. It was found that by the end of the contract stream, the distributors share stabilized at 27.5 percent. Accordingly the following heuristic was used,If the contract term for the actual run ends at 27.5 percent, stabilize at 27.5 percent for the coming weeks, otherwise, use the contract terms of the analogous movie from the previous years data. VISITORjw: To estimate demand for movie in week u the opening and decay parameters, alpha and beta, and the holiday factor, c are estimated The opening and decay rates of a movie were estimated by transforming the threeparameter model into a two-parameter exponentially declining model, which involves only opening and decay rates. Then the revenues of the movies in the holiday weeks was multiplied by their holiday factors, which was estimated independently 6. (p. S118, Column 2, last paragraph): "Since we need at least one more data point to estimate a two-parameter model, we use ...." What is meant by this statement? 7. How is the regression model used in demand estimation? Draw a flowchart to explain the process for released movies and forthcoming releases.

8. How are holidays considered in the model? What does it mean to "de-holidize"? Why is it needed? (p. S120) Holidays can be responsible for variation in audience visiting theaters, hence are accounted for by inclusion of a dummy variable to estimate weekly demand. H=1,if u is a holiday week and 0 otherwise, Cu is the holiday factor for week u Holiday factor is estimated independently(or management specific) and demand data estimated by two factor model is multiplied by the holiday factor to come up with demand that includes the holiday season effect. De-holidize is done to estimate the future demand for the coming week. By dividing the data for current week by holiday factor, we de-seasonalize the data to do demand

estimation for the next week. After this corresponding holiday factor for the week is multiplied with estimate to get final demand estimate. 9. What are the impacts of SilverScreener? Attendance at Buietnhof increased more compared to other theaters where silverscreen was not implemented which resulted in increased profits Silverscreen was able to provide contingency schedule from best possible movie options available Attitude of managers towards toward model based solution (Silverscreener) improved overtime Extensions of the model were requested by the management to help address other issues like micromanagement of several theaters in same city which includes determining optimal daily time slots for different movies, assigning movies to time slots and screens, and managing concessions 10. How does AMPL (which was used to implement the model) fit into our DSS framework? Explain the model in words. AMPL is a comprehensive and powerful algebraic modeling language for linear and nonlinear optimization problems, in discrete or continuous variables. AMPL helps to formulate optimization models examine solutions AMPL's flexibility and convenience render it ideal for rapid prototyping and modeling. Its speed and control options make it an efficient choice for repeated production runs. The model proposed and deployed in the article was an integer programming model . It selected the movies (6) that would optimize results over the next eight weeks. Each week allocation procedure Highest expected customer highest capacity theatre Continue in the same way