Real World Applications of Network Related Problems and Breakthroughs in Solving Them Efficiently

Networks and network related problems occur with remarkable frequency in practical mathematical programming applications. This paper presents a variety of applications from industry and government that illustrate the scope and usefulness of network related formulations. In addition, recent breakthroughs in specialized methods and mathematical programming software systems that are capable of solving in only a few minutes problems that require many hours of computing time with commercial LP packages are reported. Finally, the latest developments in large scale applications are reported. These developments have made it possible to solve a manpower planning problem involving 450,000 variables in 26 minutes of central processing time on the IBM 360-65.

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