×

Solving the generalised assignment problem using polyhedral results. (English) Zbl 0951.90008

Summary: The Generalised Assignment Problem (GAP) consists of finding a maximal profit assignment of \(n\) tasks over \(m\) capacity constrained agents, whereby each task has to be processed by only one agent. We develop an improved implementation of the standard procedure for generating lifted cover inequalities describing an approximation to the convex hull of the knapsack constraints in the GAP polytope. This improvement yields a good upper bound and closes the gap by an additional 15% on average. Based on this result, we propose two heuristics for finding close-to-optimal solutions, giving us a tight lower bound. Computational results on a set of 60 representative and highly capacitated problems indicate that these solutions lie within 0.06% of the optimum. After applying some pre-processing techniques and using the obtained bounds, we solve the generated instances to optimality by Branch-and-Bound (B & B) within reasonable computing time.

MSC:

90B06 Transportation, logistics and supply chain management
90C57 Polyhedral combinatorics, branch-and-bound, branch-and-cut
90C10 Integer programming

Software:

LINDO
Full Text: DOI

References:

[1] Balas, E., Facets of the knapsack polytope, Mathematical Programming, 8, 146-164 (1975) · Zbl 0316.90046
[2] Balas, E.; Zemel, E., Facets of the knapsack polytope from minimal covers, SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, 34, 119-148 (1978) · Zbl 0385.90083
[3] Benders, J. F.; Van Nunen, J. A.E. E., A property of assignment type mixed integer linear programming problems, Operations Research Letters, 2, 2, 47-52 (1983) · Zbl 0506.90060
[4] Campbell, J. F.; Langevin, A., The snow disposal assignment problem, Journal of the Operational Research Society, 48, 919-929 (1995) · Zbl 0832.90067
[5] Cattrysse, D., Set partitioning approaches to combinatorial optimisation problems, (Ph.D. Thesis (1990), K.U. Leuven)
[6] Cattrysse, D. G.; Van Wassenhove, L. N., A survey of algorithms for generalised assignment problems, European Journal of Operational Research, 60, 3, 260-272 (1992) · Zbl 0760.90071
[7] Cattrysse, D. G.; Salomon, S.; Van Wassenhove, L. N., A set partitioning heuristic for the generalised assignment problem, European Journal of Operational Research, 72, 1, 167-174 (1994) · Zbl 0798.90107
[8] Crowder, H.; Johnson, E. L.; Padberg, M., Solving large-scale zero-one linear programming problems, Operations Research, 31, 5, 803-834 (1983) · Zbl 0576.90065
[9] Fisher, M. L.; Jaikumar, R.; Van Wassenhove, L. N., A multiplier adjustment method for the generalised assignment problem, Management Science, 32, 9, 1095-1103 (1986) · Zbl 0626.90036
[10] Grigoriadis, M. D.; Tang, D. J.; Woo, L. S., Considerations in the optimal synthesis of some communications networks, (Paper presented at 45th joint National Meeting of ORSA/TIMS. Paper presented at 45th joint National Meeting of ORSA/TIMS, Boston, MA (1975))
[11] Hammer, P. L.; Johnson, E. L.; Peled, U. N., Facets of regular 0-1 polytopes, Mathematical Programming, 8, 179-206 (1975) · Zbl 0314.90064
[12] Martello, S.; Toth, P., Knapsack Problems, Algorithms and Computer Implementations, (Wiley Interselence Series in Discrete Mathematics and Optimisation (1990), John Wiley: John Wiley New York, NY) · Zbl 0452.90047
[13] Nemhauser, G. L.; Wolsey, L. A., Integer and Combinatorial Optimisation, (Wiley Interscience Series in Discrete Mathematics and Optimisation (1988), John Wiley: John Wiley New York, NY) · Zbl 0469.90052
[14] Ross, G. T.; Soland, R. M., A branch and bound algorithm for the generalised assignment problem, Mathematical Programming, 8, 91-103 (1975) · Zbl 0308.90028
[15] Schrage, L., (Users manual for linear, integer and quadratic programming with LINDO (1985), The Scientific Press: The Scientific Press Redwood City, CA)
[16] Schrage, L., An implementation of Gilmore-Gomory’s branch and bound procedure for the generalised knapsack problem (1991), Personal Communication
[17] Trick, M. A., A linear relaxation heuristic for the generalised assignment problem, Naval Research Logistics, 39, 137-152 (1992) · Zbl 0758.90047
This reference list is based on information provided by the publisher or from digital mathematics libraries. Its items are heuristically matched to zbMATH identifiers and may contain data conversion errors. In some cases that data have been complemented/enhanced by data from zbMATH Open. This attempts to reflect the references listed in the original paper as accurately as possible without claiming completeness or a perfect matching.