For the 50 years that linear optimization has been around, people recognized that integer programming was a powerful conceptual model. Until recently, many important problems could be formulated but not solved. The fact that they can be solved now is as much due to algorithmic improvements we have made as to faster computers. Of course, we would not have been able to make these improvements without faster computers, so it is a chicken-and-egg situation.

An oil company using a computer to control online optimization on one piece of equipment at a single refinery estimated a $5,000,000/year savings.