MiniZinc – a brilliant optimisation solution
Optimisation is an ongoing challenge for many organisations: it is both a headache and an opportunity...
Optimisation is an ongoing challenge for many organisations: it is both a headache and an opportunity.
For complex problems such as staff rostering or vehicle routing, finding efficient and effective solutions is hard. However, the benefits of getting it right are substantial: lower costs, better customer service and increased compliance to regulations.
Yet commercially available software that purports to be able to help can cost millions of dollars, take years to “calibrate”, and still not deliver the desired results. Enter MiniZinc.
Developed by researchers at Monash University, the University of Melbourne and Data 61, MiniZinc is a modelling language and implementation that enables the user to specify their optimisation problem in a way that then dramatically simplifies the choice and deployment of available optimisation technologies.
In MiniZinc, optimisation problems are described directly and naturally. This means that the MiniZinc solution can be easily adapted to match changing business requirements. For example, if new work regulations are imposed, the MiniZinc production scheduler can be quickly, cheaply and safely adapted. If a new major transport customer opportunity arises, an optimised fleet configuration can be quickly generated to assess its cost impact and support the tender.
Working on MiniZinc has been a labour of love for Dr Guido Tack from Monash University, who leads the project.
“Although we’re already using it to help our industry partners to solve hard problems, we’re still very actively developing the system,” Dr Tack said. “Our development focus is on usability and scalability, to make it easier than ever to solve our industry partners’ large scale optimisation problems.”
With the support of Monash University’s Faculty of Information Technology, MiniZinc is currently being employed around the world for diverse applications such as planning when ships enter and leave ports, optimising fleets of vehicles to meet operational requirements, scheduling the transportation of mineral resources, or designing optimal layouts for industrial plants.
Professor Mark Wallace is the Associate Dean Research in the Faculty of IT. “I believe MiniZinc will become the industry standard program for everyone working in optimisation,” he said. “MiniZinc’s ability to let the user switch instantly between the different competing optimisation approaches has disrupted the optimisation landscape.”