To deal with engineering problems at work, we sometimes have to perform a "Full Monte". This has nothing to do with being naked around power tools. We just call our futile exercise of humiliation as the "Full Monte." Basically, we strip our pride and bare our souls to release new, untested products that sales sold ahead of time in spite of our protests.
Sales and management often enjoy "counting chickens before they hatch" while forgetting the part about buying the rooster. But it's engineering's fault as we frequently point out that little necessity during the development process to production.
Anyway, we use a statistical tool called a Monte Carlo simulation, hence the "Monte" part. We take adjoining pieces in an assemble and simulate all the possible sizes that our vendor will send us.
This exercise answers many questions. Such as, how likely will the resulting assemble be too large, too small, or a just-right fit? And, how likely will we meet the customer’s requirements? And, how likely with the VPs get a large bonus for making us use sub-standard parts that may or may not be the correct size? And, how likely are we wasting time on an exercise where we already know how bad production will be? (Surprisingly, pay raises never makes the list of things most likely to occur.)
Monte Carlo is a very versatile statistical tool. When I think of the name, I’ve wondered if people ever used it back in the days of “Let’s Make a Deal” show? The master-of-ceremonies, Monte Hall, would randomly pick overly excited contestants from an audience full of people wearing the most outrageous costumes. I have no doubt that these people did everything possible to get selected - included the use of complicated math.
One time, I remember Monte (the person, not the algorithm) chose a rather large woman dressed as a big ol’ montecristo cigar. This happened during the late 80's when such a get-up was funny. Those crazy cigar moments have changed since the days of President Clinton. Since his administration, you can thank the anti-smoking people for taking a giant super-soaker to such tobacco hilarity. I think it's their fault. I could be wrong.
Oh well. Where was I? Oh yeah, we use math at work without getting naked. Probably a good thing. The last thing we need is for Human Resources to make a Montezuma out of a molehill.
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