MACODA Working Group: Survey on Real-World Optimization Problems

This working group was created in MACODA workshop. 

Our goal is to clarify the characteristics of real-world optimization problems and generate a new benchmark test suite based on the survey.  We believe such a test suite helps efficiently developing new optimization methods for real-world optimization problems. 

In the first stage, we wish to collect characteristics of optimization problems encountered in industry and applied research. To this end, we would like to ask you for help by answering some questions about the structure of your optimization problem. We will release a statistical report on the webpage and send a notification if you write your email address at the end of the questionnaire.

We really appreciate your contribution to this survey. Please access the questionnaire with the button on the right. 



K. van der Blom, T. M. Deist, V. Volz, M. Marchi, Y. Nojima, B. Naujoks, A. Oyama, and T. Tušar, "Identifying properties of real-world optimisation problems through a questionnaire," Many-Criteria Optimization and Decision Analysis: State-of-the-Art, Present Challenges, and Future Perspectives, pp. 59--80, Springer International Publishing, 2023.
@inproceedings{BloEtAl23,  author="van der Blom, Koen  and Deist, Timo M.  and Volz, Vanessa  and Marchi, Mariapia  and Nojima, Yusuke  and Naujoks, Boris  and Oyama, Akira  and Tu\v{s}ar, Tea",  editor="Brockhoff, Dimo        and Emmerich, Michael        and Naujoks, Boris        and Purshouse, Robin",  title="Identifying Properties of Real-World Optimisation Problems Through a Questionnaire",  year="2023",  isbn="978-3-031-25263-1",  publisher="Springer International Publishing",  address = "Cham",  url="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25263-1_3",  doi="10.1007/978-3-031-25263-1_3",  bookTitle="Many-Criteria Optimization and Decision Analysis: State-of-the-Art, Present Challenges, and Future Perspectives",  pages="59--80",}

The questionnaire structure

There are 73 questions in total. According to variable types, existence of constraints, and the number of objectives, only 29 to 52 questions are actually posed. 

The questionnaire has been modified on April 9, 2020. The number of questions in the previous questionnaire was 75. The GECCO2020 poster paper and the first report were prepared using the previous version. The main difference from the previous version is the modification of the questions' descriptions. The structure of the current version is the same as the previous one.

All the questions in the current questionnaire can be downloaded from here. 

Members of this working group

Koen van der Blom (LIACS, Leiden University, Netherlands)

Timo Deist (Centrum Wiskunde Informatica, Netherlands)

Mariapia Marchi (ESTECO SpA, Italy)

Boris Naujoks (TH Köln, Germany)

Yusuke Nojima (Osaka Prefecture University, Japan)

Akira Oyama (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Japan)

Tea Tušar (Jozef Stefan Institute, Slovenia)

Vanessa Volz (modl.ai, Denmark)

List of papers related to the answers we received by now.