Galgos is an institute affiliated with the Brazilian university PUC-Rio, which focuses on developing and applying algorithmic methods to handle and analyze large amounts of data and resource optimization. It maintains and updates a record of the best-known scores reported by teams worldwide.

This year, Galgos expanded the record register with Gehring-Homberger benchmarks, i.e., problems in the CVRPTW (Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows), i.e., VRP with time windows. To illustrate the issue, let’s imagine the following situation: a vehicle fleet operator receives a list of points to visit, their locations, time windows in which they can be visited, the number of goods that must be delivered to a given place, and the maximum load of vehicles. The problem is to find the shortest possible route for vehicles that pass through all points without exceeding the time windows of visiting any of them or the maximum load of cars. A record, in this case, is understood as improving the best result known so far. Depending on the initial assumptions (number of points to visit, goods, etc.), there can be a lot of instances of such a problem, and therefore also records.

Otimo reported its results in as many as 71 instances of such a problem, and as these are the best results known so far in the world, it can boast of so many current records. It is undoubtedly a huge success, not only in the world of science but perhaps even above all – in business. It is not the first achievement of Otimo in this field. The team’s core is the authors of a globally unique solver – a tool for determining vehicle routes that generate the best-known results for the tested instances. Over the years of working on joint projects, the people behind Otimo broke dozens of other records for selected optimization problems.

– I must admit that we are incredibly proud of these achievements – said Krzysztof Chaładyn, Vice-President of the Management Board of Otimo Sp. z o. o. – The example of Otimo confirms that it is not always the size of the company or the resources that count. A team of talented people with appropriate knowledge and experience, professionals with a real passion for what they do, was able to make a small company from Łódź win in the global optimization race against giants from Silicon Valley or China. Optimization, especially the last mile, is currently one of the hottest topics in the logistics industry, and all key players are working on solutions in this area. I can assure you that at Otimo, we are just starting to show what we are capable of, and more records are ahead of us.”