MPL for Windows Manual
MPL for Windows Manual
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Optimization is today one of the most important tools in implementing and planning efficient operations and increasing competitive advantage. Organizations need to make intelligent decisions to obtain optimal use of their available resources, such as manpower, equipment, raw materials and capital. The discipline of optimization, through the use of advanced mathematics and computer science techniques, can be used to assist organizations with solving their complex business problems in areas such as manufacturing, distribution, finance, and scheduling. Typically, these optimization problems contain hundreds, thousands, or even millions of interconnected variables and require an advanced set of software tools to solve.
Today, the field of optimization entails highly advanced software applications that integrate sophisticated mathematical algorithms and modeling techniques with intelligent software programming and data processing capabilities. Optimization projects begin with the development of a mathematical model that defines the business problem. Individual business decisions are represented as "variables," and the connections between them are represented by a series of mathematical equations termed "constraints". The "objective" represents the goal of the business problem, for example, to maximize profitability or lower costs. Identifying the variables, the constraints and the objective is known as the "modeling" process and is an essential task for every optimization project. After the model has been formulated, it is then solved, using an optimization solver, which, at its core, has highly sophisticated algorithms adept at intelligently sorting through huge amounts of data and analyzing possible approaches to come up with an optimal solution.Maximal Software is the developer of MPL (Mathematical Programming Language) an advanced modeling system that allows the model developer to formulate complicated optimization models in a clear, concise, and efficient way. Models developed in MPL can then be solved with any of the multiple commercial optimizers available on the market today.
MPL includes an algebraic modeling language that allows the model developer to create optimization models using algebraic equations. The model is used as a basis to generate a mathematical matrix that can be relayed directly into the optimization solver. This is all done in the background so that the model developer only needs to focus on formulating the model. Algebraic modeling languages, such as MPL, have proven themselves over the years to be the most efficient method of developing and maintaining optimization models because they are easier to learn, quicker to formulate and require less programming.
MPL offers a feature-rich model development environment that takes full advantage of the graphical user interface in Microsoft Windows, making MPL a valuable tool for developing optimization models. MPL can import data directly from databases or spreadsheets. Once the model has been solved, MPL also has the ability to export the solution back into the database. MPL models can be embedded into other Windows applications, including databases and spreadsheets, which makes MPL ideal for creating end-user applications.
The main purpose of a modeling language is to retrieve data from a structured data source, such as a database, and generate a matrix that the optimization solver can handle. For large optimization models, this matrix generation requires a modeling language with highly advanced capabilities, such as sparse indexing and database management, as well as high scalability and speed. Many details need to be taken into account when choosing a modeling language for optimization projects:
MPL was designed to support multiple platforms. MPL for Windows is the most popular platform but an OSF Motif version is also available for various UNIX flavors including HP 9000, IBM RS-6000, Sun Sparc, Silicon Graphics and Linux. MPL models are portable so a model created for one platform can always be read on any other supported platform.
This new release, offers the highest performance of modeling languages on the market today. Since we are constantly working on new releases of MPL, please contact Maximal Software for updated information.
1.1 What is MPL
1.2 The Key Features of MPL
1.3 How to Contact Maximal Software