Revisiting Slick Oil: A simple game to quickly show the value of optimization

Five years ago, LLamasoft and Opex Analytics released Slick Oil. A very simple game for teaching why you need optimization. I use it in my introduction to optimization classes.

The game used to be online, but is no longer available. However, I just posted the Excel version of the game on by blog. In addition to the Excel files, you can also get directions to the game.

At the bottom of the Slick Oil post, there is another link to a similar exercise-- this one about production planning in a factory. That game also teaches the value of linear programming.