Final Grades and Averages

C&O 370/CM 443 is an undergraduate course in the theory and practice of Operations Research (OR) models prevalent in real-world applications.

Operations Research: The Science of Better

OR focuses on improving operations in business and governments through the use of analytical methods and the development of specialized techniques. The field provides systematic approaches to problem solving and decision making, regardless of the nature of the problem. The approaches and tools used in OR are based on mathematical methods, simulation, and qualitative or logical reasoning. Many of these tools and approaches depend on computer based methodologies for implementation.

OR is all around you! Here are some real-world examples for the use of OR techniques:

• The Sabre Story: The making of OR magic at American Airlines.
• Ford uses OR to to optimize the design and test process for its vehicle prototypes.
• Healthcare: operating rooms, patient flow, etc... ( e.g. tutorials)
• IBM used OR to restructure its supply chain system.
• NBC uses OR to increase advertising revenue and productivity.
• Practical Financial Optimization: A library of GAMS models.

In this Course

This course will mainly focus on the optimization side of OR. Some of the application areas we will consider are finance, investments, operational management, marketing, transportation, logistics, and manufacturing. The optimization techniques we will cover include:

• Linear Optimization Models (formulations, sensitivity analysis)
• Integer Optimization (formulations, solution algorithms)
• Stochastic & Robust Optimization (formulations, solution methods)
• Network Formulations (shortest paths, max flow/min cut, min cost flow, network simplex)
• Dynamic Programming
• Nonlinear Optimization (formulations, convex unconstrained optimization)

Students will learn how to use the above techniques to devise succinct mathematical models for many standard applications. Students will also learn how to implement and solve these models given practical data. The tool of choice in this class is AMPL (A Mathematical Programming Modeling Language) a versatile and powerful mathematical modeling software.