MTH443 Advanced Topics in Operations Research

Final Project

Real-World Optimization Problem Solving

Type: Group work

Report and Slides Submission Deadline: Dec 9th (Monday)

Date of Presentation: Dec 11th (Wednesday)

Purpose:

This coursework is designed to enhance your understanding of advanced concepts in Operations Research (OR) while applying these techniques to solve a real-world optimization problem. The goal is to develop skills in modeling, solving, and analyzing optimization problems through practical implementation.

Project Overview:

Each group will select a practical OR problem from a domain of their preference (e.g., logistics, supply chain, transportation, scheduling, etc.). The task involves conducting a literature review, formulating the problem mathematically, developing solution methods, performing computational experiments, and analyzing the results. The final deliverable is a concise report summarizing your findings, along with any relevant code or implementations, and a presentation on the project followed by a Q&A session.

Instructions:

1. Problem Identification and Literature Review:

 Select a practical OR problem from a domain of your choice (e.g., logistics, supply chain, transportation, scheduling, etc.) that is relevant to the module and get approval from the teacher.

 Provide a clear description of the problem.

 Search for relevant research, and conduct a brief review of existing approaches applied to similar problems.

2. Mathematical Formulation:

 Formulate the mathematical model for the selected problem, specifying the objective function, constraints, and decision variables. Provide a clear explanation of the formulation, including any assumptions made.

3. Solution Method:

 Design and develop heuristic method(s) to effectively solve large-scale instances of the problem.

 Implement the chosen solution using a programming language of your choice.

4. Computational Experiments:

 Generate instances to test your solution method, using either real-world data or existing benchmark instances.

 Design and conduct experiments to evaluate the performance of the method under various scenarios, highlighting any special characteristics observed in the problem.

5. Results Analysis and Interpretation:

 Provide a thorough analysis of the computational results.

 Discuss the implications of your findings and any practical insights derived from the results.

6. Report writing:

 Write a report (maximum 2000 words, excluding figures, tables and appendix) that includes the following sections:

o Introduction: introduce the topic and your motivation. Briefly review the relevant current research.

o Problem definition and mathematical formulation: Define the problem and present the mathematical model.

o Solution Method: Describe the solution methods. Use flowchart or pseudocode if needed.

o Computational results: Present experiment design, results, and analysis.

o Conclusions: summarize the main results and insights.

o References (if any): List all references cited in your report. Make sure the citation style. is correct and consistent.

o Appendix (if any)：Include any additional materials.

 Ensure logical structure, clarity, conciseness, and formality in your writing.

 Include a cover page with the project title, module and coursework information, and group member information.

7. Presentation:

 Prepare a 15 mins presentation summarizing your project.

 The presentation should be concise, engaging, and well-organized, using visual aids (e.g., slides, graphs, diagrams) to support your explanation.

 Participate in a 5 min Q&A session.

8. Submission:

 LMO submission should contain the following three files:

o A PDF file of your report

o A ZIP file containing all your code and data

o A PPT file of your presentation

 Name your files: [GroupID]_[Report/Code/PPT]_MTH443FinalProject.