Heuristics for the variable sized bin-packing problem

We investigate the one-dimensional variable-sized bin-packing problem. This problem requires packing a set of items into a minimum-cost set of bins of unequal sizes and costs. Six optimization-based heuristics for this problem are presented and compared. We analyze their empirical performance on a large set of randomly generated test instances with up to 2000 items and seven bin types. The first contribution of this paper is to provide evidence that a set covering heuristic proves to be highly effective and capable of delivering very-high quality solutions within short CPU times. In addition, we found that a simple subset-sum problem-based heuristic consistently outperforms heuristics from the literature while requiring extremely short CPU times.     

Efficient lower bounds and heuristics for the variable cost and size bin packing problem

We consider the variable cost and size bin packing problem, a generalization of the well-known bin packing problem, where a set of items must be packed into a set of heterogeneous bins characterized by possibly different volumes and fixed selection costs. The objective of the problem is to select bins to pack all items at minimum total bin-selection cost. The paper introduces lower bounds and heuristics for the problem, the latter integrating lower and upper bound techniques. Extensive numerical tests conducted on instances with up to 1000 items show the effectiveness of these methods in terms of computational effort and solution quality. We also provide a systematic numerical analysis of the impact on solution quality of the bin selection costs and the correlations between these and the bin volumes. The results show that these correlations matter and that solution methods that are un-biased toward particular correlation values perform better.     

Variable neighbourhood search for the variable sized bin packing problem

The variable sized bin packing problem is a generalisation of the one-dimensional bin packing problem. Given is a set of weighted items, which must be packed into a minimum-cost set of bins of variable sizes and costs. This problem has practical applications, for example, in packing, transportation planning, and cutting. In this work we propose a variable neighbourhood search metaheuristic for tackling the variable sized bin packing problem. The presented algorithm can be seen as a hybrid metaheuristic, because it makes use of lower bounding techniques and dynamic programming in various algorithmic components. An extensive experimentation on a diverse set of problem instances shows that the proposed algorithm is very competitive with current state-of-the-art approaches.     

The load-balanced multi-dimensional bin-packing problem

The bin-packing problem is one of the most investigated and applicable combinatorial optimization problems. In this paper we consider its multi-dimensional version with the practical extension of load balancing, i.e. to find the packing requiring the minimum number of bins while ensuring that the average center of mass of the loaded bins falls as close as possible to an ideal point, for instance, the center of the bin. We formally describe the problem using mixed-integer linear programming models, from the simple case where we want to optimally balance a set of items already assigned to a single bin, to the general balanced bin-packing problem. Given the difficulty for standard solvers to deal even with small size instances, a multi-level local search heuristic is presented. The algorithm takes advantage of the Fekete–Schepers representation of feasible packings in terms of particular classes of interval graphs, and iteratively improves the load balancing of a bin-packing solution using different search levels. The first level explores the space of transitive orientations of the complement graphs associated with the packing, the second modifies the structure itself of the interval graphs, the third exchanges items between bins repacking proper n-tuples of weakly balanced bins. Computational experiments show very promising results on a set of 3D bin-packing instances from the literature.     

A class of simple stochastic online bin packing algorithms

In the one-dimensional bin packing problem a list ofn items has to be packed into a minimum number of unit-capacity bins. A class of linear online algorithms for the approximate solution of bin packing with items drawn from a known probability distribution is presented. Each algorithm depends on the distribution and on a parameter controlling the performance of the algorithm. It is shown that with increasing number of items the expected performance ratio has an arbitrary small deviation from optimum.     

A greedy search for the three-dimensional bin packing problem: the packing static stability case

We suggest a greedy search heuristic for solving the three-dimensional bin packing problem (3D-BPP) where in addition to the usual requirement of minimum amount of bins being used, the resulting packing of items into the bins must be physically stable. The problem is NP-hard in the strong sense and imposes severe computational strain for solving it in practice. Computational experiments are also presented and the results are compared with those obtained by the Martello, Pisinger and Vigo (2000) heuristic.     

CHAMP: Creating heuristics via many parameters for online bin packing

The online bin packing problem is a well-known bin packing variant and which requires immediate decisions to be made for the placement of a lengthy sequence of arriving items of various sizes one at a time into fixed capacity bins without any overflow. The overall goal is maximising the average bin fullness. We investigate a ‘policy matrix’ representation, which assigns a score for each decision option independently and the option with the highest value is chosen, for one-dimensional online bin packing. A policy matrix might also be considered as a heuristic with many parameters, where each parameter value is a score. We hence effectively investigate a framework which can be used for creating heuristics via many parameters. The proposed framework combines a Genetic Algorithm optimiser, which searches the space of heuristics in policy matrix form, and an online bin packing simulator, which acts as the evaluation function. The empirical results indicate the success of the proposed approach, providing the best solutions for almost all item sequence generators used during the experiments. We also present a novel fitness landscape analysis on the search space of policies. This study hence gives evidence of the potential for automated discovery by intelligent systems of powerful heuristics for online problems; reducing the need for expensive use of human expertise.     

Extended guided tabu search and a new packing algorithm for the two-dimensional loading vehicle routing problem

In this paper, we develop an extended guided tabu search (EGTS) and a new heuristic packing algorithm for the two-dimensional loading vehicle routing problem (2L-CVRP). The 2L-CVRP is a combination of two well-known NP-hard problems, the capacitated vehicle routing problem, and the two-dimensional bin packing problem. It is very difficult to get a good performance solution in practice for these problems. We propose a meta-heuristic methodology EGTS which incorporates theories of tabu search and extended guided local search (EGLS). It has been proved that tabu search is a very good approach for the CVRP, and the guiding mechanism of the EGLS can help tabu search to escape effectively from local optimum. Furthermore, we have modified a collection of packing heuristics by adding a new packing heuristic to solve the loading constraints in 2L-CVRP, in order to improve the cost function significantly. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is tested, and proven by extensive computational experiments on benchmark instances.     

Packing of one-dimensional bins with contiguous selection of identical items: An exact method of optimal solution

Consideration was given to the one-dimensional bin packing problem under the conditions for heterogeneity of the items put into bins and contiguity of choosing identical items for the next bin. The branch-and-bound method using the “next fit” principle and the “linear programming” method were proposed to solve it. The problem and its solution may be used to construct an improved lower bound in the problem of two-dimensional packing.     

Three insertion heuristics and a justification improvement heuristic for two-dimensional bin packing with guillotine cuts

The problem of packing two-dimensional items into two-dimensional bins is considered in which patterns of items allocated to bins must be guillotine-cuttable and item rotation might be allowed (2BP|?|G)$(2\mathrm{BP}|?|\mathrm{G})$. Three new constructive heuristics, namely, first-fit insertion heuristic, best-fit insertion heuristic, and critical-fit insertion heuristic, and a new justification improvement heuristic are proposed. All new heuristics use tree structures to represent guillotine-cuttable patterns of items and proceed by inserting one item at a time in a partial solution. Central to all heuristics are a new procedure for enumerating possible insertions and a new fitness criterion for choosing the best insertion. All new heuristics have quadratic worst-case computational complexity except for the critical-fit insertion heuristic which has a cubic worst-case computational complexity. The efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed heuristics is demonstrated by comparing their empirical performance on a standard benchmark data set against other published approaches.     

On the generalized bin packing problem

The generalized bin packing problem (GBPP) is a novel packing problem arising in many transportation and logistic settings, characterized by multiple items and bins attributes and the presence of both compulsory and non‐compulsory items. In this paper, we study the computational complexity and the approximability of the GBPP. We prove that the GBPP cannot be approximated by any constant, unless . We also study the particular case of a single bin type and show that when an unlimited number of bins is available, the GBPP can be reduced to the bin packing with rejection (BPR) problem, which is approximable. We also prove that the GBPP satisfies Bellman's optimality principle and, exploiting this result, we develop a dynamic programming solution approach. Finally, we study the behavior of standard and widespread heuristics such as the first fit, best fit, first fit decreasing, and best fit decreasing. We show that while they successfully approximate previous versions of bin packing problems, they fail to approximate the GBPP.     

Optimization of one-dimensional Bin Packing Problem with island parallel grouping genetic algorithms

The well-known one-dimensional Bin Packing Problem (BPP) of whose variants arise in many real life situations is a challenging NP-Hard combinatorial optimization problem. Metaheuristics are widely used optimization tools to find (near-) optimal solutions for solving large problem instances of BPP in reasonable running times. With this study, we propose a set of robust and scalable hybrid parallel algorithms that take advantage of parallel computation techniques, evolutionary grouping genetic metaheuristics, and bin-oriented heuristics to obtain solutions for large scale one-dimensional BPP instances. A total number of 1318 benchmark problems are examined with the proposed algorithms and it is shown that optimal solutions for 88.5% of these instances can be obtained with practical optimization times while solving the rest of the problems with no more than one extra bin. When the results are compared with the existing state-of-the-art heuristics, the developed parallel hybrid grouping genetic algorithms can be considered as one of the best one-dimensional BPP algorithms in terms of computation time and solution quality.     

Adaptive selection of heuristics for assigning time slots and rooms in exam timetables

This paper presents an iterative adaptive approach which hybridises bin packing heuristics to assign exams to time slots and rooms. The approach combines a graph-colouring heuristic, to select an exam in every iteration, with bin-packing heuristics to automate the process of time slot and room allocation for exam timetabling problems. We start by analysing the quality of the solutions obtained by using one heuristic at a time. Depending on the individual performance of each heuristic, a random iterative hyper-heuristic is used to randomly hybridise the heuristics and produce a collection of heuristic sequences to construct solutions with different quality. Based on these sequences, we analyse the way in which the bin packing heuristics are automatically hybridised. It is observed that the performance of the heuristics used varies depending on the problem. Based on these observations, an iterative hybrid approach is developed to adaptively choose and hybridise the heuristics during solution construction. The overall aim here is to automate the heuristic design process, which draws upon an emerging research theme which is concerned with developing methods to design and adapt heuristics automatically. The approach is tested on the exam timetabling track of the second International Timetabling Competition, to evaluate its ability to generalise on instances with different features. The hyper-heuristic with low-level graph-colouring and bin-packing heuristics approach was found to generalise well over all the problem instances and performed comparably to the state of the art approaches.     

Robust hyper-heuristic algorithms for the offline oriented/non-oriented 2D bin packing problems

The offline 2D bin packing problem (2DBPP) is an NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem in which objects with various width and length sizes are packed into minimized number of 2D bins. Various versions of this well-known industrial engineering problem can be faced frequently. Several heuristics have been proposed for the solution of 2DBPP but it has not been possible to find the exact solutions for large problem instances. Next fit, first fit, best fit, unified tabu search, genetic and memetic algorithms are some of the state-of-the-art methods successfully applied to this important problem. In this study, we propose a set of novel hyper-heuristic algorithms that select/combine the state-of-the-art heuristics and local search techniques for minimizing the number of 2D bins. The proposed algorithms introduce new crossover and mutation operators for the selection of the heuristics. Through the results of exhaustive experiments on a set of offline 2DBPP benchmark problem instances, we conclude that the proposed algorithms are robust with their ability to obtain high percentage of the optimal solutions.     

A constructive bin-oriented heuristic for the two-dimensional bin packing problem with guillotine cuts

A new heuristic algorithm for solving the two-dimensional bin-packing problem with guillotine cuts (2DBP|?|G)$(2\mathrm{DBP}|?|\mathrm{G})$ is presented. The heuristic constructs a solution by packing a bin at a time. Central to the adopted solution scheme is the principle of average-area sufficiency proposed by the authors for guiding selection of items to fill a bin. The algorithm is tested on a set of standard benchmark problem instances and compared with existing heuristics producing the best-known results. The results presented attest to the efficacy of the proposed scheme.     

Using genetic algorithms to solve quality-related bin packing problem

The Bin Packing Problem is an industrial problem which involves grouping items into appropriate bin to minimize the cost and number of used bins. It provides a solution for assigning parts to optimize some predefined measures of productivity. In this study, Ion Plating (IP) industry requires similar approach on allocating production jobs into batches for producing better quality products and enabling to meet customer deadlines. The aim of this paper is to (i) develop a Bin Packing Genetic Algorithms (BPGA) with different weighting combinations, taking into account the quality of product and service; (ii) improve the production efficiency by reducing the production unit cost in IP. Genetic Algorithm was chosen because it is one of the best heuristics algorithms on solving optimization problems. In the case studies, industrial data of a precious metal finishing company was used to simulate the proposed BPGA model, and the computational results were compared with these industrial data. The results from three different weighting combinations demonstrated that fewer resources would be required by applying the proposed model in solving BP problem in the Ion Plating Cell.     

Hybrid greedy heuristics based on linear programming for the three‐dimensional single bin‐size bin packing problem

In this paper, we propose to solve the three‐dimensional single bin‐size bin packing problem (3D‐SBSBPP) using a simple strategy based on integer linear programming (ILP) heuristics, without using any improvement based on metaheuristics. We first propose an ILP that is converted into a series of three‐dimensional single knapsack problems (3D‐SKP). Then, the first tailored heuristic can be viewed as a hybrid approach in which both “selection” and “positioning” phases are combined. The first phase serves to select a subset of items where each of these items is susceptible to belonging to an active container. The positioning phase serves to pack a subset of items already preselected by the selection phase. Then, both phases cooperate till packing all items into their corresponding containers. The second heuristic can be viewed as an extended version of the first one. Indeed, before deciding whether the current container is closed or a new container is activated, “a local reoptimization phase” is considered. Finally, both proposed heuristics are evaluated on a set of random instances obtained by using the standard generator scheme of the literature. The provided results show that both proposed heuristics remain competitive when compared to the results obtained by one of the best methods of the literature.     

一种新的多约束尺寸可变的装箱问题

多约束尺寸可变的装箱问题作为经典装箱问题的扩展,具有极为广泛的应用背景。在以货车运输为主的物流公司的装载环节中,运输成本不仅仅由车厢的空间利用率决定。分析了该类装箱问题与传统的集装箱装载问题的区别,并据此给出了一种新的尺寸可变装箱问题的定义。除了经典装箱问题中物品体积这一参数,还引入了物品类型、箱子类型等参数,建立了数学模型,将经典的FFD（First Fit Decreasing）算法进行了推广,提出了新的算法MFFD,并分析了相关的算法复杂性。最后对FF、FFD以及MFFD算法进行了模拟实验,实验结果表明,在相关参数符合均匀分布的条件下,MFFD算法效果较好。     

Heuristics for two-dimensional knapsack and cutting stock problems with items of irregular shape

In this paper, the two-dimensional cutting/packing problem with items that correspond to simple polygons that may contain holes are studied in which we propose algorithms based on no-fit polygon computation. We present a GRASP based heuristic for the 0/1 version of the knapsack problem, and another heuristic for the unconstrained version of the knapsack problem. This last heuristic is divided in two steps: first it packs items in rectangles and then use the rectangles as items to be packed into the bin. We also solve the cutting stock problem with items of irregular shape, by combining this last heuristic with a column generation algorithm. The algorithms proposed found optimal solutions for several of the tested instances within a reasonable runtime. For some instances, the algorithms obtained solutions with occupancy rates above 90% with relatively fast execution time.     

单规格一刀切矩形排样问题的启发式搜索算法

针对单规格一刀切二维矩形排样问题,提出了一种启发式搜索算法,称为大小工件分治择优匹配(bigitem smallitem divide-and-conquer best-fit,简称BSDBF)启发式算法.该算法基于组化规则,提出了大小工件分治策略和组块快速举荐算法,是对组化策略的关键补充,这对优解获得至关重要.然后,择优选择适应度高的组块进行递归排样,贪心获得各块板材的排样方案.最后,基于设计的工件拆分方法,对初始解进行后处理小规模重排,进一步提升解的质量.因为没有随机因素,其获得的优解可复现,也是BSDBF算法区别于其他算法的典型特征.大量Benchmark案例的实验结果表明,BSDBF算法求解质量优于其他算法报道结果.