SOLVeR: A Blueprint for Collaborative Optimization in Practice

Collaboration among different stakeholders in achieving a problem-solving task is increasingly recognized as a vital component of applied research today. For instance, in various research areas in engineering, economics, medicine, and society, optimization methods are used to find efficient solutions. Such a problem-solving task involves at least two types of collaborators – optimization experts and domain experts. Each collaborator cannot solve a problem most efficiently and meaningfully alone, but a systematic collaborative effort in utilizing each other’s expert knowledge plays a critical and essential role. While many articles on the outcome of such collaborations have been published, and the justification of domain-specific information within an optimization has been established, systematic approaches to collaborative optimization have not been proposed yet. In this paper, methodical descriptions and challenges of collaborative optimization in practice are provided, and a blueprint illustrating the essential phases of the collaborative process is proposed. Moreover, collaborative optimization is illustrated by case studies of previous optimization projects with several industries. The study should encourage and pave the way for optimization researchers and practitioners to come together and embrace each other’s expertise to solve complex problems of the twenty-first century.