» OPT-LOG Research Project

OPT-LOG is a research project of the University of Jyväskylä's Agora Center (Agora Innoroad Laboratory). The task of the project is to determine Finnish organisations' (including the public sector) needs for optimization in their logistic operations, survey the best available optimization softwares and evaluate their suitability for the organizations.

» Goals

The optimization in the OPT-LOG research is mainly targeted at delivery and vehicle routing problems. The vehicle routing problem (VRP) consists of defining an optimal set of routes for vehicles in order to serve a set of customers. There are many variants of the problem, but the common objective is to minimize the total travel time and cost, and often also the size of the fleet. Other constraints, such as time windows, dynamic demand and vehicle capacity can exist as well. Different vehicle routing problems are among the most difficult combinatorial optimization tasks. The vehicle routing problem resembles two well-known problem: the shortest path problem and the travelling salesman problem (TSP).

The project is divided into three parts:

1. Surveying the needs of organizations and analyzing these needs
2. Surveying current software resources and collecting research information
3. Demonstrating optimization possibilities to organizations by case-studies

As a result of the project the participating organizations get a detailed analysis of the current condition of their logistics operations and development potential. With the help of case-studies they're given information about the most suitale optimization tools and their benefits. Reports and scientific articles will be published about the project in international scientific publications so that all Finnish organizations can benefit from the results.

The future aspiration is to develop a globally well-known and appreciated group of researchers at the University of Jyväskylä, with strong connections to other research groups and organizations both in Finland and around the world. The Project supports Finnish software development and international competitiveness of software companies and transportation organizations.

» OPT-LOG Team

Management
Name	Email	Task
Professor Pekka Neittaanmäki	pn@mit.jyu.fi	Staff management
Adjunct professor Olli Bräysy	olli.braysy@jyu.fi	Substance management
M.Sc. Esa Kannisto	esa.kannisto@jyu.fi	Project management
Work group
Name	Email	Task
Ph.D. Toni Ruohonen	toperuoh@jyu.fi	Simulation
M.Sc. Pentti Nakari	pjen@jyu.fi	Optimization, analyzing, reporting
M.Sc. Pasi Porkka	pasi.porkka@hse.fi	Special tasks
Research Assistant Joni Brigatti	jonibrig@jyu.fi	Optimization, analyzing, reporting
Research Assistant Antti Hallamäki	antahall@jyu.fi	Software reviewing, analyzing, reporting
Research Assistant Pekka Hotokka	pejuhoto@jyu.fi	Optimization, analyzing, reporting

If you want to contact OPT-LOG project, see the contact information page.