Article ID: | iaor20042302 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 30 |
Issue: | 11 |
Start Page Number: | 1713 |
End Page Number: | 1726 |
Publication Date: | Sep 2003 |
Journal: | Computers and Operations Research |
Authors: | Kalvelagen Erwin |
Keywords: | heuristics |
The ‘Progressive Party Problem’ has long been considered a problem intractable for branch-and-bound mixed integer solvers. Quite impressive results have been reported with constraint programming systems for this problem. As a result the problem has become a standard example in texts on constraint programming. Fortunately, there has been progress in the mixed integer programming arena: we can solve now larger and more difficult problems than ever before. Improvements in algorithmic theory, solvers, modeling environments and computer hardware created a new situation, where reported cases of unsolvable instances of mixed integer programming models need to be re-examined possibly with another outcome. In this paper we will show that we can solve the ‘Progressive Party Problem’ formulated as a large MIP problem, using standard, off-the-shelf hardware and software. A simple myopic heuristic is also implemented and can solve the problem in a fraction of the time.