Check: Look at the information tooltip next to the finished OE job. If it says that “Some Value Finders are still moving fast with unsatisfied neighbors”, it means that the OE needs more steps to find the solution. This is especially true if this applies to a large portion of the Value Finders.
Solution: Change the number accordingly and start a new run.
Possible cause 1: The constraint is not tuned enough.
Solution: Increase the priority of the constraint, check its target value and the minimum of the Value Finder.
Possible cause 2: Over-constrained problem: if the OE job says that “Some Value Finders are very close to their boundaries and may be stuck there”, it means that the solution of the problem is outside its research space.
We can still pinpoint what these problematic constraints are and what elements are affected.
We can, if it makes business sense, adjust other constraints to make room for optimization.
Define with the client what are the most important constraints to satisfy.
Note: Do not hesitate to test some runs with more lenient constraints: people will often try to put more constraints than needed, by trying to predict the impact of a modification somewhere and applying their expected results on the intermediate steps from the product the target aggregation. More often than not it will only restrict the optimization space for no gain.
Possible cause 3: Over-constrained problem from conflicting objectives. Two or more constraints push the system in irreconcilable directions, and it settled at the best compromise it could. For example, a constraint that aims to reduce the list price and a constraint that aims to increase its margin.
Check: The “Unacceptable” lines in the results tables to validate that other constraints conflict with the one you are working on.
Solution: With feedback from the domain, decide if you have to modify some constraints or to add an exception for specific agents (e.g. not optimizing for some specific product).
