(PDF) Tyrel Russell and Peter van Beek. Lessons Learned from Modelling the NHL Playoff Qualification Problem. Proceedings of the Eighth International Workshop on Constraint Modellig and Reformulation (ModRef'09), Lisbon, Portugal, September, 2009.
The modelling of complex problems tends to be most effective when modelling is calibrated using a concrete solver and modifications to the model are made as a result. In some cases, the final model is significantly different from the simple model that best fits the constraints of the problem. While there are several projects that are attempting to create black box solvers with generic modelling languages, for the moment the modelling processes is intimately tied to the solving and search procedure. This paper looks at the changes to the simple model and the search procedures that were made to create an efficient solution to the NHL Playoff Qualification problem. The approaches for improving the model could be extended to other applications as the techniques are not specific to this problem.