A Logarithmic Method for Reducing Binary Variables and Inequality Constraints in Solving Task Assignment Problems

A Logarithmic Method for Reducing Binary Variables and Inequality Constraints in Solving Task Assignment Problems

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Article ID: iaor20134959
Volume: 25
Issue: 4
Start Page Number: 643
End Page Number: 653
Publication Date: Sep 2013
Journal: INFORMS Journal on Computing
Authors: , ,
Keywords: programming (binary), mixed integer programming
Abstract:

This paper studies the classical task assignment problem (TAP) in which M unbreakable tasks are assigned to N agents with the objective to minimize the communication and process costs subject to each agent's capacity constraint. Because a large‐size TAP involves many binary variables, most, if not all, traditional methods experience the difficulty in solving the problem within a reasonable time period. Recent works present a logarithmic approach to reduce the number of binary variables in problems with mixed‐integer variables. This study proposes a new logarithmic method that significantly reduces the numbers of binary variables and inequality constraints in solving task assignment problems. Our numerical experiments demonstrate that the proposed method is superior to other known methods of this kind for solving large‐size TAPs.

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