Given a general mixed integer program (MIP), we automatically detect block structures in the constraint matrix together with the coupling by capacity constraints arising from multi-commodity flow formulations. We identify the underlying graph and generate cutting planes based on cuts in the detected network. Our implementation adds a separator to the branch-and-cut libraries of Scip and Cplex. We make use of the complemented mixed integer rounding framework (c-MIR) but provide a special purpose aggregation heuristic that exploits the network structure. Our separation scheme speeds-up the computation for a large set of MIPs coming from network design problems by a factor of two on average.
Citation
ZIB Report ZR-09-38, November 2009, Zuse Institute Berlin, Takustr. 7, 14195 Berlin
Article
View The Mcf-Separator – Detecting and Exploiting Multi-Commodity Flow Structures in MIPs