Optimization algorithms by Otimo set 71 world records this year. Although the Brazilian institute Galgos, which keeps a register of such records, receives submissions from teams all around the world, this year no one can match the results of the company from Lodz. 

Galgos is an institute affiliated with the Brazilian PUC-Rio university that focuses on the development and application of algorithmic methods to handle and analyze large amounts of data, as well as resource optimization. It keeps and updates a register of the best known results reported by teams from all around the world.

This year Galgos expanded the record register to include Gehring-Homberger benchmarks, i.e. problems in the area of CVRPTW (Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows), i.e. VRP with time windows. To illustrate the issue, let's imagine the following situation: a vehicle fleet operator receives a list of points to visit, their locations, time windows in which they can be visited, the amount of goods that must be delivered to a given point and the maximum load of vehicles. The problem is to find the shortest possible route for vehicles that passes through all the points without exceeding the time windows of visiting any of them or the maximum load of vehicles. A record in this case is understood as improving the best result known so far. Depending on the initial assumptions (number of points to visit, goods, etc.), there can be a lot of instances of such a problem, and therefore also records. 

Otimo reported its results in as many as 71 instances of such a problem. And as these are the best know results in the world so far, it can boast of just as many current records. This is undoubtedly a huge success, not only in the world of science, but perhaps even more importantly - in business. This is not the first Otimo’s achievement in this field. The core of the team are the authors of a globally unique solver – a vehicle routing tool that generates the best known results for the tested instances. Over the years of working on joint projects, the people behind Otimo broke dozens of other records for selected optimization problems. 

"I must admit that we are extremely proud of these achievements.” – says Krzysztof Chaładyn, Vice-Chairman of the Board of Otimo Ltd. “The example of Otimo confirms that it is not always only the size of the company or the resources it has that count. A team of talented people with appropriate knowledge and experience, professionals with a real passion for what they do, was able to make a small company from Lodz win in the global optimization race against giants from Silicon Valley or China. Optimization, especially of the last mile, is currently one of the hottest topics in the logistics industry and all the key players are working on solutions in this area. I can assure you that at Otimo we are just starting to show what we are capable of and more records are ahead of us”. 

The current register of records of the Brazilian institute Galgos is available here.