How to Stay Competitive

Abstract

In the Office Of The Future, the coffee pot will come to you. You'll push a button on your wrist communicator, and a mobile robot will appear at your desk with fresh pots of coffee and tea, and donuts. Also, through the Wonder of Technology, you will only have to work a half-day to maintain your current productivity, so you can devote the rest of your time to entrepeneurial pursuits. Suppose you decide to go into the mobile-coffee-robot business, providing coffee-serving robots to office buildings for a flat monthly fee. Your expenses are proportional to the distance the robots travel, so you want to minimize this quantity by making smart decisions about which robot to send to service any given request. (After servicing a request, the robot stays where it is until needed again.) Of course it would help if you could make some predictions about future requests, but that is not possible. Here are two strategies: