Purpose and history
The group was created in 1987 by C. Roucairol, D. de Werra and A. Rinnooy Kan. C. Roucairol chaired for the first 10 years and now it's chaired by S. Martello. This group provides an excellent opportunity to discuss recent and important issues in Combinatorial Optimization and its applications with European combinatorialists; most European countries are represented.The groupe is suitable for people who are presently engaged in Combinatorial Optimization (CO), either in theoritical aspects or in business, industry or public administration applications ... All the fields are taken in consideration: operations management - logistics, production scheduling location and distribution problem, ressource allocation, flexible manufacturing ..., - engineering, VLSI design and computer design, network design, ... Recent sessions in last ECCOs have attached a particular emphasis to metaheuristics or new local search methods (tabu, genetic algorithm, ...), polyhedra approaches to difficult problems, recent developments in classical optimization problems (scheduling, assignmentn knapsack, partitioning, ...).
The meetings are held on a regular basis (once a year during Spring) and nicely combine scientific work and the exchange of new ideas with an exciting atmosphere, as in Paris, May 88; Venice, June 89; Barcelona, May 90; Dubrovnik, May 91; (cancelled), Graz, April 92; Brussels, April 93; Milan, February 94; Poznan, May 95; Dublin, April 96; Tenerife, May 97; Copenhagen, May 98; Bendor, May 99; Capri, May 00; Bonn, May 01; Lugano, May-June 02; Molde, June 03; Beirut, June 04; Minsk, May 05; Porto, May 06. An abstract booklet is distributed to the participants at each meeting.
