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.