Top Ten Secrets to Success with Optimization

Abstract

The Department of Defense coordinates the activities of millions of people using assets worth trillions of dollars. This is important, complex work. Computer-based decision support is universal, and this has enabled optimization to continue to enhance legacy manual planning methods. The success of real-world applications of optimization turns out to depend on a handful of trade secrets that are essential, but do not appear in textbooks. This short summary reveals ten of these secrets and motivates them by example.