The class is taught using the book by Conforti et al. Practical exercises are based on examples provided by the distribution of AIMMS. AIMMS, an acronym for "Advanced Interactive Multidimensional Modeling System", is a software system for modeling and solving large-scale decision problems. It is used in real life by many large companies, as well as by universities for teaching algorithmic aspects of model solving.
The most recent version of AIMMS can be downloaded from the aimms-website . It is designed to work for Windows only. One needs a license to actually run the program. For students at TUe, the student license can be activated via information found on our TUe-aimms site which needs login information aimms for user name, and AIMMS for TU/e as password. The student license allows for limited sized problems only. A non-limited student license can be requested from the aimms site aimms-academic-website .
The aimms installation does not require administrator rights. Save the file at your download page and execute it. It will unpack the download in a user file, typically under the folder C:Users/yourname/AppData/Local/AIMMS/IFA/Aimms; and then start up. It is best to also install the Aimms-launcher, from the aimms web site. This will place a shortcut on your desktop, and select the aimms download on this far-away folder for executing, without a renewed installation.
To start practising with AIMMS you are advised to go through the
tutorial for beginners,
which leads you through the set-up of a complete transportation model,
including a user interface.
A standard and appropriate location for storing your AIMMS projects would be at a folder
in "myAimmsProjects", in your default Documents library.
Next, you may build your first own integer programming model according to the instructions found in
Gathering Ingredients.
This is done starting from an existing AIMMS project in which the actual model still has to added.
As an AIMMS project is built up from several files, the project is provided in a compressed format.
Download and unzip the
zip-file at an appropriate location, side-by-side
along your transportation project.
You may want to deepen the experience by doing another G-AIMMS project. The information is given in
Spell Assignment, referring to a partially filled project
found in
zip-file nr 2. The full set of G-AIMMS exercises is found in
the G-AIMMS sub folder.