Many decisions to be made in management or planning of an enterprise are optimization problems. The field of research concerned with solving them is called operations research [運籌學]. We are concerned with questions such as

  • How can we divide blocks of raw material into parts of exactly the right sizes needed for the work pieces the customer wants, with minimum wastage?
  • If a company has already several dependencies in China and wants to open a new office, in which city should that be located to maximize customer coverage and company profit?
  • How should incoming customer orders be assigned to machines for manufacturing so that all orders are completed on time and as fast as possible (also considering that an order may need to be processed by multiple machines in multiple steps)?

These few examples show that the direction borders directly to our logistics direction and topics relevant to the concepts of Industry 4.0 and Made in China 2025 [中国制造2025] as it can make production both greener and more intelligent. Our institute can provide a framework for the optimized operation in a highly automated manufacturing environment.

Publications

  • Kristian Verduin, Thomas Weise, and Daan van den Berg. Why is the Traveling Tournament Problem not solved with Genetic Algorithms? Accepted for presentation at the EVO* 2023 Late-Breaking Abstract Session, April 12-14, 2023, Brno, Czech Republic.

  • Tianyu Liang, Zhize Wu, Jörg Lässig, Daan van den Berg, and Thomas Weise. Solving the Traveling Salesperson Problem using Frequency Fitness Assignment. In Hisao Ishibuchi, Chee-Keong Kwoh, Ah-Hwee Tan, Dipti Srinivasan, Chunyan Miao, Anupam Trivedi, and Keeley A. Crockett, editors, Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computational Intelligence (IEEE FOCI'22), part of the IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI 2022). December 4–7, 2022, Singapore, pages 360–367. IEEE.
    doi:10.1109/SSCI51031.2022.10022296
    Indexing: EI.

  • Lixiang Xu, Lixin Cui, Thomas Weise, Xinlu Li, Zhize Wu, Feiping Nie, Enhong Chen, and Yuanyan Tang. Semi-supervised multi-Layer convolution kernel learning in credit evaluation. Pattern Recognition. 120(108125). December 2021.
    doi:10.1016/j.patcog.2021.108125
    Indexing: SCI, EI, 1区, CCF-B类

  • Thomas Weise, Xinlu Li, Yan Chen, and Zhize Wu. Solving Job Shop Scheduling Problems Without Using a Bias for Good Solutions. In Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion (GECCO'21 Companion), July 10-14, 2021, Lille, France. ACM, New York, NY, USA. ISBN 978-1-4503-8351-6.
    doi:10.1145/3449726.3463124 / slides / video presentation
    Indexing: EI, CCF-C类

  • Thomas Weise, Zhize Wu, Xinlu Li, and Yan Chen. Frequency Fitness Assignment: Making Optimization Algorithms Invariant under Bijective Transformations of the Objective Function Value. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation 25(2):307–319. April 2021.
    Preprint available at arXiv:2001.01416v5 [cs.NE] 15 Oct 2020.
    doi:10.1109/TEVC.2020.3032090 / pdf / paper@arxiv / experimental results and source code data set @ doi:10.5281/zenodo.3899474
    Indexing: SCI, EI, 1区, CCF-B类

  • Thomas Weise, Yan Jiang, Qi Qi, and Weichen Liu. A Branch-and-Bound-Based Crossover Operator for the Traveling Salesman Problem. International Journal of Cognitive Informatics and Natural Intelligence (IJCINI) 13(3):1-18, Fall 2019
    doi:10.4018/IJCINI.2019070101
    Indexing: ESCI

  • Thomas Weise, Zijun Wu, and Markus Wagner. An Improved Generic Bet-and-Run Strategy with Performance Prediction for Stochastic Local Search. Proceedings of the Thirty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2019), January 27 – February 1, 2019, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, pages 2395–2402. Palo Alto, CA, USA: AAAI Press. ISBN: 978-1-57735-809-1
    doi:10.1609/aaai.v33i01.33012395 / pdf@IAO / pdf@AAAI / slides / poster / blog 1 / blog 2 / early preprint@arxiv
    Indexing: CCF-A类, EI

  • Thomas Weise, Yuezhong Wu, Weichen Liu, and Raymond Chiong. Implementation Issues in Optimization Algorithms: Do they matter? Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence (JETAI) 31(4):533–554, 2019.
    doi:10.1080/0952813X.2019.1574908
    Indexing: EI, ESCI, 4区, CCF-C类

  • Thomas Weise, Xiaofeng Wang, Qi Qi, Bin Li, and Ke Tang. Automatically discovering clusters of algorithm and problem instance behaviors as well as their causes from experimental data, algorithm setups, and instance features. Applied Soft Computing Journal (ASOC), 73:366–382, December 2018.
    doi:10.1016/j.asoc.2018.08.030 / blog entry
    Indexing: EI, WOS:000450124900027, ESCI, 1区

  • Markus Ullrich, Thomas Weise, Abhishek Awasthi, and Jörg Lässig. A Generic Problem Instance Generator for Discrete Optimization Problems. In Black Box Discrete Optimization Benchmarking (BB-DOB) Workshop of Companion Material Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2018), July 15th-19th 2018, Kyoto, Japan, pages 1761-1768, ISBN: 978-1-4503-5764-7. ACM.
    doi:10.1145/3205651.3208284 / pdf / slides / source codes / workshop website
    Indexing: EI, CCF-C类

  • Mengxiang Zhang, Jingneng Ni, Liming Yao. Pigovian Tax-based Equilibrium Strategy for Waste Load Allocation in River System. Journal of Hydrology. 563:223-241. June 2018.
    doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2018.05.063
    Indexing: SSCI, SCI, 2区

  • Qi Qi, Thomas Weise, and Bin Li. Optimization Algorithm Behavior Modeling: A Study on the Traveling Salesman Problem. In Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Advanced Computational Intelligence (ICACI 2018), March 29-31, 2018 in Xiamen [厦门], Fujian [福建省], China, IEEE, pages 861–866. ISBN: 978-1-5386-4362-4. Appeared in the International Workshop on Benchmarking of Computational Intelligence Algorithms (BOCIA) at the ICACI 2018.
    doi:10.1109/ICACI.2018.8377576 / pdf / slides / workshop website

  • Jingneng Ni, Jiuping Xu, Mengxiang Zhang. Constructed wetland modelling for watershed ecosystem protection under a certain economic load: A case study at the Chaohu Lake watershed, China. Ecological Modelling. 368:180–190. February 2018.
    doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2017.11.019
    Indexing: SCIE, 3区

  • Zijun Wu, Rolf H. Möhring, and Jianhui Lai. Stochastic Runtime Analysis of a Cross-Entropy Algorithm for Traveling Salesman Problems. Theoretical Computer Science (TCS), 724(69-86), May 2018.
    doi:10.1016/j.tcs.2017.10.012 / arXiv:1612.06962 [cs.DS]
    Indexing: SCI, EI, 4区, CCF-B类

  • Weichen Liu, Thomas Weise, Yuezhong Wu, and Qi Qi. Combining Two Local Searches with Crossover: An Efficient Hybrid Algorithm for the Traveling Salesman Problem. In Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO'17), July 15-19, 2017, Berlin, Germany, New York, NY, USA: ACM Press, pages 298-305, ISBN: 978-1-4503-4920-8.
    doi:10.1145/3071178.3071201 / paper / slides / blog entry 1 / blog entry 2
    Indexing: EI:20173104005769, CCF-C类

  • Abhishek Awasthi, Jörg Lässig, Thomas Weise, and Oliver Kramer. Tackling Common Due Window Problem with a Two-Layered Approach. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Combinatorial Optimization and Applications (COCOA 2016), Hong Kong, China, December 16–18, 2016, volume 10043 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS), pages 772-781, Cham, Switzerland: Springer. ISBN: 978-3-319-48748-9 (print), 978-3-319-48749-6 (online)
    doi:10.1007/978-3-319-48749-6_59
    Indexing: EI:20165203192912

  • Jingneng Ni, Jiuping Xu, Mengxiang Zhang. Constructed wetland planning-based bilevel optimization to balance watershed ecology and economic development: A case study of Chaohu Lake watershed, China. Ecological Engineering. 97:106–121. December 2016.
    doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2016.07.024
    Indexing: SCI, 3区

  • Thomas Weise, Yuezhong Wu, Raymond Chiong, Ke Tang, and Jörg Lässig. Global versus Local Search: The Impact of Population Sizes on Evolutionary Algorithm Performance. Journal of Global Optimization 66(3):511-534, November 2016.
    doi:10.1007/s10898-016-0417-5 / pdf
    Indexing: EI:20160902030834, WOS:000386373700007, SCI, 2区

  • Yuezhong Wu, Thomas Weise, and Weichen Liu. Hybridizing Different Local Search Algorithms with Each Other and Evolutionary Computation: Better Performance on the Traveling Salesman Problem. In Proceedings of the 18th Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO'16), Denver, Colorado, USA, July 20–24, 2016, pages 57-58, New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ISBN: 978-1-4503-4323-7
    doi:10.1145/2908961.2909001 / pdf / poster
    Indexing: EI:20163702804277, WOS:000383741800029, CCF-C类

  • Weichen Liu, Thomas Weise, Yuezhong Wu, Dan Xu, and Raymond Chiong. An Improved Ejection Chain Method and Its Hybrid Versions for Solving the Traveling Salesman Problem. Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience 13(6):3601-3610, June 2016
    doi:10.1166/jctn.2016.5189
    Indexing: EI:20164002870059

  • Abhishek Awashi, Jörg Lässig, Jens Leuschner, and Thomas Weise. GPGPU-based Parallel Algorithms for Scheduling Against Due Date. In Proceedings of 6th IEEE Workshop on Parallel Computing and Optimization (PCO'16), Chicago, IL, USA, May 23-27, 2016, pages 766-775. Piscataway, NJ, USA: IEEE Computer Society. ISBN: 978-1-5090-3682-0
    doi:10.1109/IPDPSW.2016.66 / pdf
    Indexing: EI:20164302934880, WOS:000391253600089

  • Chao Gao, Xin Yao, Thomas Weise, and Jinlong Li. An Efficient Local Search Heuristic with Row Weighting for the Unicost Set Covering Problem. European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR), 246(3):750-761, November, 2015.
    doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2015.05.038 / pdf
    Indexing: EI:20152400938829, WOS:000357754500008, SCI, 2区

  • Weichen Liu, Thomas Weise, Yuezhong Wu, and Raymond Chiong. Hybrid Ejection Chain Methods for the Traveling Salesman Problem. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Bio-Inspired Computing – Theories and Applications (BIC-TA'15), Maoguo Gong, Linqiang Pan, Tao Song, Ke Tang, and Xingyi Zhang, editors, September 25-28, 2015, Hefei, Anhui, China, volume 562 of Communications in Computer and Information Science. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, pages 268-282, ISBN 978-3-662-49013-6.
    doi:10.1007/978-3-662-49014-3_25 / pdf
    Indexing: EI:20160300001732, WOS:000369890300025

  • Dan Xu, Thomas Weise, Yuezhong Wu, Jörg Lässig, and Raymond Chiong. An Investigation of Hybrid Tabu Search for the Traveling Salesman Problem. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Bio-Inspired Computing – Theories and Applications (BIC-TA'15), Maoguo Gong, Linqiang Pan, Tao Song, Ke Tang, and Xingyi Zhang, editors, September 25-28, 2015, Hefei, Anhui, China, volume 562 of Communications in Computer and Information Science. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, pages 523-537, ISBN 978-3-662-49013-6.
    doi:10.1007/978-3-662-49014-3_47 / pdf
    Indexing: EI:20160300001756, WOS:000369890300047

  • Yuezhong Wu, Thomas Weise, and Raymond Chiong. Local Search for the Traveling Salesman Problem: A Comparative Study. In Proceedings of the 14th IEEE Conference on Cognitive Informatics & Cognitive Computing (ICCI*CC'15), July 6-8, 2015, Beijing, China, pages 213-220, Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press, ISBN: 978-1-4673-7289-3.
    doi:10.1109/ICCI-CC.2015.7259388 / pdf
    Indexing: EI:20161202119039, WOS:000380466100034

  • Jiuping Xu, Jingneng Ni, Mengxiang Zhang. Constructed wetland planning-based bilevel optimization model under fuzzy random environment: Case study of Chaohu lake. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 141[04014057]:1–18. January 2015.
    doi:10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0000440
    Indexing: SCI, 3区

  • Yan Jiang, Thomas Weise, Jörg Lässig, Raymond Chiong, and Rukshan Athauda. Comparing a Hybrid Branch and Bound Algorithm with Evolutionary Computation Methods, Local Search and their Hybrids on the TSP. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Production and Logistics Systems (CIPLS'14), Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI'14), Orlando, FL, USA: Caribe Royale All-Suite Hotel and Convention Center, December 9-12, 2014, pages 148-155. Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press. ISBN 978-1-4799-5375-2.
    doi:10.1109/CIPLS.2014.7007174 / pdf
    Indexing: EI:20150700522268, WOS:000380487400021

  • Abhishek Awasthi, Jörg Lässig, Oliver Kramer, and Thomas Weise. Common Due-Window Problem: Polynomial Algorithms for a Given Processing Sequence. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Production and Logistics Systems (CIPLS'14), Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI'14), pages 32-39, Orlando, FL, USA: Caribe Royale All-Suite Hotel and Convention Center, December 9–12, 2014. Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
    doi:10.1109/CIPLS.2014.7007158 / pdf
    Indexing: EI:20150700522279, WOS:000380487400005

  • Chao Gao, Thomas Weise, and Jinlong Li. Improve the 3-flip Neighborhood Local Search by Random Flat Move for the Set Covering Problem. In Ying Tan, Yuhui Shi, and Carlos Artemio Coello Coello, editors, Advances in Swarm Intelligence: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Swarm Intelligence, Part 1 (ICSI'14), volume 8794 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), ISBN 978-3-319-11856-7, October 17-20, 2014, Hefei, Anhui, China, pages 27-35. Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag GmbH.
    doi:10.1007/978-3-319-11857-4_4 / pdf
    Indexing: EI:20150400451475, WOS:000345009700004

  • Thomas Weise, Raymond Chiong, Ke Tang, Jörg Lässig, Shigeyoshi Tsutsui, Wenxiang Chen, Zbigniew Michalewicz, and Xin Yao. Benchmarking Optimization Algorithms: An Open Source Framework for the Traveling Salesman Problem. IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine (CIM), 9(3):40-52, August 2014.
    Featured article and selected paper at the website of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (http://cis.ieee.org/).
    doi:10.1109/MCI.2014.2326101 / pdf
    Indexing: EI:20143117995681, WOS:000340271800004, SCI, 1区, Google Scholar

  • Chao Gao, Thomas Weise, and Jinlong Li. A Weighting-Based Local Search Heuristic Algorithm for the Set Covering Problem. In Proceedings of the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC'14), Proceedings of the 2014 World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI'14), pages 826-831, Beijing, China: Beijing International Convention Center (BICC), July 6-11, 2014. ISBN: 978-1-4799-1488-3, Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
    doi:10.1109/CEC.2014.6900355 / pdf
    Indexing: EI:201446182585, WOS:000356684601029

  • Kai Zhang, Thomas Weise, and Jinlong Li. Fitness Level based Adaptive Operator Selection for Cutting Stock Problems with Contiguity. In Proceedings of the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC'14), Proceedings of the 2014 World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI'14), pages 2539-2546, July 6-11, 2014, Beijing, China: Beijing International Convention Center (BICC). Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press. ISBN: 978-1-4799-1488-3.
    doi:10.1109/CEC.2014.6900335 / pdf
    Indexing: EI:201446182765, WOS:000356684603067

  • Jin Ouyang, Thomas Weise, Alexandre Devert, and Raymond Chiong. SDGP: A Developmental Approach for Traveling Salesman Problems. In Proceedings of the 2013 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Production and Logistics Systems (CIPLS'13), Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI'13), pages 78-85, Singapore: Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel, April 15-19, 2013. ISBN: 978-1-4673-5905-4, Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
    doi:10.1109/CIPLS.2013.6595203 / pdf / slides
    Indexing: EI:20134116837899, WOS:000335391600011

  • Raymond Chiong, Thomas Weise, and Zbigniew Michalewicz, editors. Variants of Evolutionary Algorithms for Real-World Applications. ISBN: 978-3-642-23423-1, Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2012.
    doi:10.1007/978-3-642-23424-8
    Indexing: EI:20172603850806

  • Thomas Weise and Raymond Chiong. A Novel Extremal Optimization Approach for the Template Design Problem. International Journal of Organizational and Collective Intelligence (IJOCI), 2(2):1-17, April–June 2011.
    doi:10.4018/joci.2011040101

  • Pu Wang, Edward P.K. Tsang, Thomas Weise, Ke Tang, and Xin Yao. Using GP to Evolve Decision Rules for Classification in Financial Data Sets. In Fuchun Sun, Yingxu Wang, Jianhua Lu, Bo Zhang, Witold Kinsner, and Lotfi A. Zadeh, editors, Proceedings of the 9th IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Informatics (ICCI'10), pages 720-727, Beijing, China: Tsinghua University, July 7–9, 2010. ISBN: 978-1-4244-8040-1, Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Computer Society Press.
    doi:10.1109/COGINF.2010.5599820
    Indexing: EI:20105013469298

  • Raymond Chiong, Thomas Weise, and Bee Theng Lau. Template Design using Extremal Optimization with Multiple Search Operators. In Nanna Suryana Herman, Siti Mariyam Shamsuddin, and Ajith Abraham, editors, Proceedings of the International Conference on SOft Computing and PAttern Recognition (SoCPaR'09), pages 202-207, Malacca, Malaysia: Melaka International Trade Centre (MITC), December 4–7, 2009. ISBN: 978-1-4244-5330-6, Piscataway, NJ, USA: IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).
    doi:10.1109/SoCPaR.2009.49
    Indexing: EI:20101012758280, WOS:000277207700035

  • Thomas Weise, Alexander Podlich, and Christian Gorldt. Solving Real-World Vehicle Routing Problems with Evolutionary Algorithms. In Raymond Chiong and Sandeep Dhakal, editors, Natural Intelligence for Scheduling, Planning and Packing Problems, volume 250 of Studies in Computational Intelligence, chapter 2, pages 29-53. ISBN: 978-3-642-04038-2, Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, October 2009.
    doi:10.1007/978-3-642-04039-9_2 / pdf

  • Diana Elena Comes, Steffen Bleul, Thomas Weise, and Kurt Geihs. A Flexible Approach for Business Processes Monitoring. In Twittie Senivongse and Rui Oliveira, editors, Proceedings of the 9th IFIP WG 6.1 International Conference on Distributed Applications and Interoperable Systems (DAIS'09), volume 5523/2009 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), pages 116-128, Lisbon, Portugal, June 9–11, 2009. ISBN: 978-3-642-02163-3, Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag GmbH.
    doi:10.1007/978-3-642-02164-0_9
    Indexing: EI:20093412265790, WOS:000268061500009

Funding

  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), International (Regional) Cooperation and Exchange Project "Operations Management in Compact Storage System Supply Chains in the Environment of Internet of Things," 2016 to 2020, Principal Investigator: Prof. Yugang Yu [余玉刚], Dr. Thomas Weise is a member of the research team

  • The University of Newcastle in Callaghan, NSW, Australia, Faculty Strategic Initiatives Research Fund (SIRF) Grant "Intelligent Transportation Planning: Benchmarking of Novel Business Analytics Techniques using the Travelling Salesman Problem as a Test-Bed," 2013, Principal Investigators were Dr. Raymond Chiong, Dr. Thomas Weise, Dr. David Cornforth, and Prof. Zbigniew Michalewicz

  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), Research Fund for International Young Scientists, "Automatic Logistic Planning," 2012, Principal Investigator was Dr. Thomas Weise

Organized Events

  • Thomas Weise, Bin Li, Markus Wagner, Xingyi Zhang, and Jörg Lässig, eds. Special Issue on Benchmarking of Computational Intelligence Algorithms published in the Applied Soft Computing journal published by Elsevier B.V. and indexed by EI and SCIE. The special issue was open for submissions from July 2018 and closed in April 14, 2019. It is a virtual special issues, where papers will be published as soon as they are accepted.
    website / CfP-website / Call for Papers (CfP)

  • Thomas Weise, Bin Li, Markus Wagner, Xingyi Zhang, and Jörg Lässig. International Workshop on Benchmarking of Computational Intelligence Algorithms (BOCIA) at the Tenth International Conference on Advanced Computational Intelligence (ICACI 2018), March 29-31, 2018 in Xiamen [厦门], Fujian [福建省], China, IEEE, ISBN: 978-1-5386-4362-4.
    website / Call for Papers (CfP)

  • Thomas Weise and Jörg Lässig. SITA-UBRI Joint Workshop on Sustainable Logistics, November 5, 2015, Hefei, Anhui, China

  • Thomas Weise and Jörg Lässig. Special Session on Benchmarking and Testing for Production and Logistics Optimization of the 2014 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Production and Logistics at the 2014 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI 2014), December 9-12, 2014, Orlando, Florida, USA

  • Thomas Weise, Jörg Lässig, Alexandre Devert, and Yi Mei. Special Session on Scalable Evolutionary Logistic Planning (SELP) of the 2013 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Production and Logistics at the 2013 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI 2013), April 15-19, 2013, Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel, Singapore

Lectures and Courses

News

  1. Intelligent Production and Logistics: The Viewpoint of Optimization
  2. Education of Practice-Oriented Professionals for Intelligent Production