A comparative review of 3D container loading algorithms

Three‐dimensional cutting and packing problems have a range of important applications and are of particular relevance to the transportation of cargo in the form of container loading problems. Recent years have seen a marked increase in the number of papers examining a variant of the container loading problem ranging from largely theoretical to implementations that focus on meeting the many critical real‐world constraints. In this paper, we review the literature focusing on the solution methodologies employed by researchers, with the aim of providing insight into some of the critical algorithmic design issues. In addition, we provide an extensive comparison of algorithm performance across the benchmark literature.