The chair headed by Prof. Dr. Oliver Stein 
mainly works in continuous optimization and belongs to the Institute of Operations Research (IOR) which was founded on January 1st, 2009.
Our research emphasizes mathematical methods of continuous and mixed-integer optimization. Its applications in Operations Research comprise the following areas:
- waste minimization deals with a question which is one of the first production steps in many industrial processes, the cutting of given shapes from a valuable material source with minimal waste (e.g. in shipping and automotive industries, in the garment industry, and in gemstone cutting),
- noncooperative games model equilibrium situations for agents with competing objectives,
- robust optimization studies how solutions of optimization problems may be immunized against uncertain input data (e.g. in the worst-case analysis of stock portfolios, in truss topology design, or in cost-minimal machine scheduling),
- data envelopment analysis is a technique to measure the relative efficiency of several decision making units among each other. A decision making unit may be any object with quantified inputs and outputs, like branches or factories of a corporate group.
More generally, typical applications of continuous optimization arise in sensitivity analysis, in parameter fitting, and in geometrical problems. Bachelor, master and diploma theses as well as dissertations at the chair mainly treat problems from the above and from related areas. Their supervision is often organized in cooperation with companies and institutions.
