Free modelling languages for linear and integer programming

This paper illustrates the use of a mathematical programming language when teaching Linear and Integer Programming models on Operational Research courses. Such languages have often required expensive optimization software but fortunately the world-wide scope of the internet has put powerful free optimization tools within the reach of anyone with a PC connected even briefly to the internet. An effective example that the University of the West of England uses in its postgraduate MSc Statistics and Management Science is the NEOS server. This freely-accessible tool permits the submission of large-scale managerial optimization problems over the internet in a wide-variety of formats and sends the results back by email often very quickly.