A Development and Integration Framework for Optimisation-based Enterprise Solutions

Abstract: The operations research literature includes some papers describing collaborative work between researchers and industry. However, not much literature exists that outlines methodologies to guide the development of a de-cision support module and its integration into an existing information management system. Here we describe a framework to aid the collaborative development of an optimisation solution by researchers and information system developers. The proposed framework also helps in the effective integration of the information manage-ment system and the decision support module. The framework is divided into three main components: a data model, a data extractor and validator, and a solution visualisation and auxiliary platform. We also describe our experience and positive results from applying the proposed development and integration framework to a project involving the development on an optimisation-based solution for workforce scheduling and optimisa-tion problems. We hope that this contribution would be particularly useful for less experienced researchers and practitioners who embark on a collaborative development of a decision support module based on optimisation techniques.