We might think that breweries have a system in place to schedule shipments to distributors—but it’s not uncommon for a distributor to show up at a brewery without any notice and ask for a whole truckload of beverages. In addition to creating a bottleneck for the brewery’s workers and creating long wait times if multiple trucks show up at the same time, these unannounced arrivals also make it difficult for the brewery to plan how much beverages to have ready at any given time.

By creating a model that predicts when trucks are likely to arrive, breweries can make sure they have the right amount of product on hand. Plus, they can give logistics companies information about the best time for trucks to arrive and even provide estimated wait times.