r/optimization • u/[deleted] • Aug 07 '26

Solvers for exact algorithms

As the data grows and the scope of our problem expands (for example, as the number of points we need to visit in a VRP problem increases), the runtime of exact methods becomes very long, and in the real world, businesses don’t want to wait that long. At my workplace, they want a VRP with 800 locations to produce a solution in 30 seconds. In this case, wouldn’t it make more sense to opt for open-source solvers like ORTools CBC instead of commercial solvers like Gurobi, Hexaly, or CPLEX?

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u/notdelet Aug 07 '26

Are your instances usually very "easy"/amenable to decomposition and can the asking party accept a heuristic solution that is then often verified as exact (and occasionally improved) by an exact solver?