BUAD 5092 - Optimization and Heuristics

(4) Prerequisite(s): BUAD 5772 - Database Management and Visualization

Optimization is an analytics methodology designed to yield the best solution to a given problem. Students are exposed to theory and applications of optimization including linear programming, non-linear programming, discrete optimization, and specialized networks. Included in this course is discussion about the difficulties of accurate representing real-world processes with a mathematical model. Most business problems are too large or too complex to be solved optimally, where the strict meaning of “optimal” means finding the provably best solution. Finding a solution that approximates the optimal solution is, therefore, the predominant mode of problem solving found in industry: these are called heuristic solutions. Many companies gain a competitive advantage by constructing heuristics that either find better solutions than do their competitors or find solutions more quickly. This course focuses on achieving such results by programming custom algorithms, which are a sequence of steps taken to provide a solution to a problem.