Course Software

Courseware: This is the name of the software that comes with the textbook. It includes:

 Limited versions of optimization solvers such as LINGO, MPL and Excel solvers.
 OR Tutor can be used to demonstrate OR techniques (demo) and thus it is a good
learning tool
 Interactive Routines are used by students to solve homework problems
interactively with the computer: The student makes the decision as to what the
next step is and enters the appropriate numbers to execute the algorithm while the
computer does only the number crunching (saving students arithmetic mistakes).
All the iterations are transparent, i.e. intermediate calculations, tables, etc., as
opposed to optimization solvers which provide only the final solution.
Unfortunately only small problems, small enough to fit all intermediate
calculations on a single computer screen, can be solved by interactive routines.
Interactive Routines can be downloaded from the textbook's website
http://www.mhhe.com/hillier/ by clicking on IOR Tutorial.

Optimization Software: We are going to use LINGO. Please download the free trial
student (most recent) version of LINGO from the website of LINDO Systems Inc.,
http://www.lindo.com/. The limited version is able to handle the size of problems we are
going to solve in this class. You can also use the unlimited version of LINGO that resides
on the University Network, NUnet. On Campus, you can access the NUnet LINGO
version from Nunet computers: from the Start menu select path: Department
Applications-Engineering-LINGO-Lingo 11 (Different labs may use different paths).
Remotely, you can access it in your myneu portal using myApps.

Software hints in homework assignments

Questions in the textbook problems may suggest the use of the Demo (D), Interactive (I),
or Computer (C) mode of the courseware.

D means that the demonstration example in OR Tutor (included in your courseware) will
be helpful.
I means that it is suggested to use an Interactive Routine (included in IOR Tutorial) to
solve the problem.
C mode means that you use computer software to find the final solution (not the
intermediate solutions). A C mode typical question in the textbook is “Use a software
package based on the simplex method to solve the problem”. For small size problems,
you can use from the courseware the Excel Solver, Premium Solver, MPL/CPLEX (pp.
68-74 of textbook), or the IOR Tutorial by selecting the procedure “Solve Automatically
by the Simplex Method”. For larger size problems that cannot fit on a computer screen
you need to use the LINGO software. Find LINGO instructions in Appendix 4.1, p. 145
of the textbook, and in LINGO software.
LINGO can be used in an explicit form of the equations mode (explicit mode) or in a
modeling language mode. In the explicit mode you mix variables with numbers directly
in a natural way, e.g., 3*x1 + 5*x2 <= 5. In the modeling language mode you keep the
numbers (data) in a different place and you reference those indirectly using attributes
(symbols). The explicit mode is more efficient for small problems with a few equations
and variables. The modeling language mode is very efficient for larger problems because
you write statements that tell the computer how to generate the equations (need only one
statement for each equation type that can generate tens, hundreds or even thousands of
equations using loops) and also you can retrieve data from (or store the solution into)
spreadsheets and databases. In the homework, unless use of the modeling language is
specified, solving by LINGO implies the use of explicit mode.