Wednesday, April 1, 2009

GLPK 4.37 released

Andrew Makhorin released GNU Linear Programming Kit (GLPK) version 4.37 on Sunday. The new release has a new feature for binary feasibility computation. Sebastian Pokutta does a better job explaining the new features of GLPK 4.37. Another feature of the new release is one I am quite fond. Reason being is that I contributed an example model using the Gnu Math Prog Language. This is my first time contributing to a free software project.

A little bit about my example I contributed. At my place of work I am currently working with a team to develop new workforce shift schedules. They need to determine a shift scenario that will meet the minimum demands on a given day. Demands vary by day of the week. I used GUSEK to develop the workforce shift model and GLPK to solve for optimality. The model is basically a set coverage mixed integer linear program. The particularly useful nature of this model is that different shift scenarios can be experimented to find an optimal shift for the given demand.

I encourage other Operations Research analysts to contribute to Open Source projects. You need not be a coder or know a programming language to contribute. You may contribute just by being a user that can relay bugs back to the project leaders. You may also contribute by providing documentation or updates to a website. The simplest way to contribute is to tell others about the merits of the Open Source project

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