Factory - (definition from Oxford's dictionary) a building or group of buildings where goods are manufactured or assembled chiefly by machines.

In Resolve, we apply the idea of a factory to optimization infrastructure in order to deliver optimization as a service.

In the same way as factories designed to produce variety of different goods, optimization factory is designed to automate the production of customized optimization models, wrap them as a service and deliver to the users through an API. Below you'll find all the available APIs through Optimization Factory.

Route Optimization

Within Route Optimization we offer services that find the best routes to employees travelling around to different geographical locations to perform tasks. The user of the api can decide the definition of best routes by setting weights on different objectives such as importance of short travel times, no late arrivals for tasks and specific employees performing tasks. The two main services we offer are the Operational Route Planner (ORP) and the Tactical Route Planner (TRP).

ORP is designed to solve a route optimization problem where the output is operational route schedules that are aimed to find the best routes over a short time period, typically a day. The goal of the ORP is to find the best day to day routes. TRP, on the other hand, is designed to solve a route optimization problem where it aims to find the best routes over a longer time period, typically a week or two. Hence, the goal of the Tactical Route Planner is to find the best task schedule and routes spanning over a long time range.

A key difference between ORP and the TRP is that ORP gives the ability to send in only one continuous time window for when a task can be performed, while TRP gives the ability to send in multiple time windows per task. Therefore TRP has a more tactical flexibility compared to ORP when it comes to assigning the time a task should be performed.

An example of a use case for ORP is a home nursing care office, which has a set of tasks (patient visits) scheduled to be performed during a day and a set of employees that are scheduled to work this day and perform the set of tasks. The tasks may have a certain time window in which they must be performed on that day and the employees have a given shift defined. The ORP then attempts to create the best possible routes with regards to e.g. driving time and few late arrivals.

An example of a use case for TRP is an electrical service company, which has a set of tasks (services) and a set of employees with a given work schedule. Some tasks may already have been scheduled to a day and time, to be performed by a particular employee during his/hers shift. Some tasks may not be scheduled yet and these have time windows that define when the task can be performed, for example on Thursday before noon, Friday afternoon or on Monday. The TRP then aims to schedule the tasks that are not yet scheduled, taking into account the tasks that are already scheduled to a route, to e.g. minimize driving time and making sure all tasks are completed as soon as possible.

Another important difference between the two services ORP and TRP is that TRP is designed in such a way that the routes generated by this service are more flexible for changes than the routes generated by the ORP. Naturally, this means that it is easier to find room for route changes in the routes generated by TRP.