The INFORMS Annual Meeting 2023 was held Phoenix and we’ve had an eventful weekend at our booth. Our workshop, presented by Atharv Bhosekar and Steven Dirkse, proved to be a success. We were delighted to see a diverse audience, ranging from newcomers to the GAMS framework to industry veterans. Their presence and engagement led to a productive session filled with intriguing questions. We appreciated the audience’s curiosity and professionalism.
Besides our workshop, we brought another exciting presentation, this time focusing on how Python integrates with GAMS in an application pipeline. Atharv kicked off the presentation, delving into GAMS Transfer and embedded code, followed by a discussion about the Control API and GAMSPy, held by Steven. The audience displayed strong interest, particularly in the GAMSPy content.
New for us was our booth’s screen, which has also been a great asset, allowing us to showcase products like Studio and Miro and revisit key parts of our presentations, including GAMSPy. Additionally, our Pop-a-Shot competition has been a hit, drawing people to our booth and fostering engaging conversations with potential users. Overall, this conference has been a tremendous success for us, and we’re eagerly looking forward to the next opportunity to get together with colleagues from this exciting industry branch.
Our two presentations this time:
The Best of Both Worlds - Integrating Python and GAMS
The Best of Both Worlds - Integrating Python and GAMS
Presented by: Dr. Atharv Bhosekar & Dr. Steven Dirkse
Optimization applications combine technology and expertise from many different areas, including model-building, algorithms, and data-handling. Often, the gathering, pre/post-processing, and visualization of the data is done by a diverse organization-spanning group that shares a common bond: their skill in and appreciation for Python and the vast array of available packages it provides. For this reason, GAMS offers multiple ways to integrate with Python on the data-handling side, as well as offering some packages of our own (e.g. GAMS Transfer, GAMS Connect). In this talk, we will explore the benefits of this integration and demonstrate them using a real-world example complete with results on performance.
Application-building with GAMS: Model Development, Data Transfer, and Deployment
Application-building with GAMS: Model Development, Data Transfer, and Deployment
Presented by: Dr. Atharv Bhosekar & Dr. Steven Dirkse
The General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) allows modelers to create optimization-based decision support applications. In this workshop, our first focus will be on model development with GAMS. We will explore what a model entails, how to solve different problem types (linear, mixed-integer, non-linear) using GAMS, as well as how to switch solvers and separate the model code from input data using GDX. Additionally, we will demonstrate how a GAMS model can be integrated and transformed into an effective application. An essential step in this process is ensuring efficient data transfer. To achieve this, we will showcase the use of the embedded code facility, GAMS Transfer API, and tools like GAMS Connect. Lastly, we will introduce the GAMS Engine, a powerful tool for solving GAMS models either on-premises or in the cloud.