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Optimization Partner Projects
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| Steel production planning
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| Several models for optimizing the production of heavy steel plates were developed. One model for maximizing the productivity in the rolling mill, one for cutting steel slabs from inventory. Yet one model has the purpose of maximizing the utilization of steel slabs. Finally, a model for optimal utilization of semi-finished products was developed.
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| Postage optimization
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| An algorithm for minimizing the postage cost for large shipments was developed. Since the postal services in many countries are deregulated, one can choose from several operators for delivering the mail. Each operator has its own price list, where the price depends on volume and average weight. To optimally select the combination of operators and volumes is a combinatorial optimization problem that Optimization Partner has solved.
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| Seasonal planning of power production
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| A production planning system with integrated risk management for the power industry was developed. Seasonal planning of power production for a producer with a large share of hydro generation respresents great risks. Uncertainty in in flows and price is very large on a planning horizon of several month to years.
Optimization Partner has developed a software based on stochastic programming. In stochastic programming, one represents certain data by stochastic parameters and optimizes in a mean value sense, with respect taken to variations (risk).
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| Allocation in the home mortgage business
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| Loan-to-value, LTV, is an important conscept in mortgage financing, as it is a measure of how risky a commitment is. In this project we solved an allocation problem for a
credit institute which resultes in guaranteed minimum LTV. See also DeedOpt in the products section.
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| Optimization of a portfolio of funds
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| In this case, an optimization tool for selection of a portfolio of funds was developed. The user can compute the portfolio of assets (here funds) which gives the highest return, given a certain level of risk.
The composition of the portfolio can be limited in many ways. For example, one can limit the portfolio weight in a certain market, region or type of fund. The user chooses his preference towards risk by positioning himself on the efficient frontier. Changes in the portfolio can easily be analyzed.
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| Production planning of co-generation
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| Development of a production planning system for co-generation of electric power and distilled water.
Input data is a forecast of the demand for power and distilled water, and output is an optimal production schedule for the units in the system.
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| Production planning of district heating
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| In this project, we developed a software for production planning is a district heating system, where in addition to the heat, electricity can be produced.
The heat demand must be met, but any excess power may be sold to the grid. The scheduling software maximizes the profit over a planning period of up to one week, using an hourly time resolution. The problem is made interesting by the presence of heat storage units, and a plethora of taxes, fees and subsidies.
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| Time tabling for train traffic
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| In a cooperation with the Swedish Rail Operator, Banverket, a software for optimizing the train time table was developed. The train operators were allowed to bid for departure times in an auction,and then the total utility was maximized, given that the schedule was feasible with respect to track constraints.
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| Investigation of internal pricing schemes
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| An investigation on how certain goods shall be priced internally between a cartel and its members was conducted. The raw goods is bought by the cartel and sold
to its members according to a certain internal pricing scheme. The customer wanted to know if this scheme was fair, or if there was a better one. Optimization Partner was able assist them in this matter, and propose a superior pricing scheme.
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| Investigation of a planning process
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| We investigated the planning process at a production company. The customer wanted an objective opinion on how the planning process was carried out today, with emphasis on the usage of software tools and cooperation between groups. The scope was widened to also include risk management.
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| Global optimization of flight trajectories
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| An investigation of methods for assuring that certain parameters was kept within their limits during certain flight maneuvers. In a model of a combat fighter, one is interested in how large certain parameters (e.g. forces) will become in extreme cases. This was solved by formulating and solving a global optimization problem.
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| Calculation of emissions
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| The customer, a global transportation company, wanted to calculate the emissions caused by their clients transports. A proposal where the customer can optimize his transports using the cheapest, shortest or greenest way. To achieve environmental certification, the customers of our client must be able to declare the emissions that are associated with their transports.
The task facing Optmization Partner was to find methods for computing these emmissiosn in a precise and fair way, but also to develope a tool for optimized transportations, where consideration of the environmental impact is included.
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| Mid-term production planning
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| The project concerned optimization models for mid-term production planning in a district heating system.
Interesting factors are fuel purchase, with uncertainty in price, together with uncertainty in heat load.
Also the of trading green certificates were included.
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| Course on non-linear optimization
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| A company in the biotech business has developed a technology for visualizing the 3D molecular stucture of proteins by tomography. Their software product contains some optimization models, and we gave in an early stage a series of ten lectures on non-linear optimization.
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| Validation of optimization software
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| A company in the biotech business has developed a method for visualization of molucular structures by electron tomography. Optimization Partner validated the optimization routines used in their software.
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| OR for train transports
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| A railway carrier invested in new wagons and wanted to study the effect on maintenance et c of different ways of configuring the wagons in sets of 2 or more.
We developed in short time an Excel based analysis tool that is used for decision support.
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| Transportation optimization
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| A transportation model for goods transports was developed and implemented. The client is a producer of chemicals, some of which are explosive. They have a large number of prducts that can be transported in different ways, to different destinations. The software developed by Optimization Partner produces a cost-optimal transportaiton pattern.
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| Software for morphological analysis
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| Morphological analysis is a structured way of analysing the different states of a system. One puts up a description of the system in terms of a number of variables, each of which can assume a number of values.
By selecting a value for each variable, a possible scenario is formed. All scenarios are not possible (or realistic), e.g. since two states are incompatible.
In a morphological analysis approach, one tries to define and visualize the scenarios that are possible, perhaps for decision making or analysis. Since the space os possible scenarios may be very large, there is a need to represent this space by a small number of scenarios. We achieved this by using an optimization formulation.
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| Software development
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| A company in the biotech business has developed a novel approach to 3D visualization of molecule structures.
Optimization Partner has developed several of the optimization models used in their software product.
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