An optimization software and services company, OptTek is the leading provider of optimization software to companies that employ simulation. OptTek employs state-of-the-art techniques based on many years of research in the area of optimization, in which the OptTek founders are internationally recognized leaders. OptTek specializes in developing and customizing its software to enable solutions for business problems characterized by significant uncertainty and complexity. The innovations underlying this software have been featured in invited plenary lectures and tutorials by the OptTek principals at meetings of the leading optimization societies in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe and the Pacific-Rim.

OptTek’s software uses methods that integrate state-of-the-art metaheuristic procedures, including Tabu Search, Neural Networks, Scatter Search, and Linear/Integer Programming, into a single composite method. OptTek has demonstrated the power of these methods in enabling its clients to significantly improve profitability by maximizing throughput and reducing operating expenses in environments that are characterized by uncertainty and highly complex processes. Examples of these environments include:

• Simulation Optimization
• Business Process Management
• Portfolio Optimization
• Supply Chain Management
• Customer Relationship Management
• Strategic & Tactical Operations Planning
• Data Security
• Inventory Management
• Human Resource Management and Planning
• Workforce Planning and Scheduling
• Resource-Constrained Scheduling
• Energy and Environmental Systems Planning
  

Dr. Fred Glover coined the term metaheuristic in 1986. A metaheuristic refers to a master strategy that guides and modifies other heuristics to produce solutions beyond those that are normally generated in a quest for local optimality. The heuristics guided by such a meta-strategy may be high-level procedures or may embody nothing more than a description of available moves for transforming one solution into another, together with an associated evaluation rule.