案例库 · 工程与运营 · 技术决策 · 2010–2014
这条还没译成中文，下面是英文原文。
Australia's NBN Co let a puzzle solver design each fibre network, not a planner
Biarri's FOND used mixed-integer programming to design low-cost fibre networks, cutting construction cost ~20% and planning time ~80%.
NBN Co · Biarri Networks
那一手
Australia's national broadband network — the largest public infrastructure project in the country, worth about A$36 billion — had to roll out fibre to millions of premises, one fibre-serving-area module at a time. Hand-designing each area was slow and inconsistent.
NBN Co contracted Biarri Networks, an Australian commercial mathematics company, to build FOND (Fibre Optic Network Design). The software turns an area's geography, existing ducts and costs into a mixed-integer program and solves for the lowest-cost layout in minutes, replacing thousands of hours of manual planning.
By making the optimality part of the design step, NBN Co could re-run and simulate options quickly instead of committing weeks to one guess.
为什么管用
- It made the cheapest design an output of an algorithm rather than a skilled human's estimate.
- Solving in minutes let engineers explore many options and scenarios instead of committing to one.
- It attacked the biggest cost — construction — directly, because the route determines how much trench is dug.
- It scaled: one solver served more than 3,000 modules with a repeatable quality standard.
可以搬走什么
For a one-off, repetitive design problem, a solver that incorporates optimality beats team after team of planners, and the savings compound the first time it runs.
后来呢
By 2014 more than 650 fibre-serving-area designs had been completed with FOND, saving an estimated A$325 million in avoided construction cost and cutting planning time per area from 145 days to 16. NBN Co and Biarri were named finalists for the 2014 INFORMS Franz Edelman Award, and Biarri later packaged the same engine as a network-design-as-a-service product.
资料来源
- Optimizing Network Designs for the World's Largest Broadband Project
- NBN Co and Biarri Networks: first class honours
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