Title
A new iterative-doubling Greedy-Lookahead algorithm for the single container loading problem.
Abstract
The aim of the Single Container Loading Problem (SCLP) is to pack three-dimensional boxes into a three-dimensional container so as to maximize the volume utilization of the container. We propose a new block building approach that constructs packings by placing one block (of boxes) at a time until no more boxes can be loaded. The key to obtaining high quality solutions is to select the right block to place into the right free space cuboid (or residual space) in the container. We propose a new heuristic for evaluating the fitness of residual spaces, and use a tree search to decide the best residual space-block pair at each step. The resultant algorithm outperforms the best known algorithms based on the 1600 commonly used benchmark instances even when given fewer computational resources. We also adapted our approach to address the full support constraint. The computational results for the full support support variant on the 1600 instances similarly show a significant improvement over existing techniques even when given substantially fewer computational resources. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Year
DOI
Venue
2012
10.1016/j.ejor.2012.04.036
European Journal of Operational Research
Keywords
Field
DocType
Packing,3D packing,Block building,Tree search
Residual,Mathematical optimization,Heuristic,3d packing,Algorithm,Free space,Cuboid,Mathematics
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
222
3
0377-2217
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
11
0.46
19
Authors
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Wenbin Zhu121415.34
Andrew Lim293789.78