Issues of commercial optimization software development

Commercial optimization software development has a different set of goals and constraints than the development of academic or industrial research codes. Commercial codes must be all things to all people. They must contain a wide range of analysis options and be able to handle large, real world, industrial analysis models. As most of the users of the software in industry come from analysis, rather than design optimization backgrounds, the codes must perform in a robust manner. Inconsistent input data must be detected. Optimization methods must be automatically chosen by the program. Optimization parameters need to be adjusted automatically by the program. Another very important aspect is ease of use. A very intuitive and easy to use GUI (Graphical User Interface) should be developed. This work describes some of the development objectives and concerns that are essential to the development of commercial optimization software products.