The Industrial Optimization Group of the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, is a part of the Department of Mathematical Information Technology and is headed by Prof. Kaisa Miettinen (since 1998). The research interests of the group are focused on MCDM and in particularly on developing theory, methods and software for solving real-world optimization problems, especially when multiple nonlinear objectives are involved. Overall, the work is inspired by real-life applications.

In the group name industrial optimization is indicating that in general theoretical and methodological development, the focus is typically on methods which are suitable and applicable in the case of industrial level applications. Even though the methods applied are typically based on strong mathematical foundations, in practice, the applications may typically lack nice mathematical structures (they can be e.g. black box models and computationally expensive) and these practical characteristics must be taken into account when developing methods. Another characteristic of the methods developed is application-independence. In other words, behind the application-specific user-interface, the optimization method can be the same for designing paper machines or planning radiotherapy treatment.

Among others, the industrial applications considered deal with improvement of product properties, making production processes and their controls more efficient, or finding the best shape or structure etc.