Robust Optimization of Sums of Piecewise Linear Functions with Application to Inventory Problems

Robust optimization is a methodology that has gained a lot of attention in the recent years. This is mainly due to the simplicity of the modeling process and ease of resolution even for large scale models. Unfortunately, the second property is usually lost when the cost function that needs to be robustified is not concave … Read more

Using diversification, communication and parallelism to solve mixed-integer linear programs

Performance variability of modern mixed-integer programming solvers and possible ways of exploiting this phenomenon present an interesting opportunity in the development of algorithms to solve mixed-integer linear programs (MILPs). We propose a framework using multiple branch-and-bound trees to solve MILPs while allowing them to share information in a parallel execution. We present computational results on … Read more

A Strong Preemptive Relaxation for Weighted Tardiness and Earliness/Tardiness Problems on Unrelated Parallel Machines

Research on due date oriented objectives in the parallel machine environment is at best scarce compared to objectives such as minimizing the makespan or the completion time related performance measures. Moreover, almost all existing work in this area is focused on the identical parallel machine environment. In this study, we leverage on our previous work … Read more

Acceleration and Stabilization Techniques for Column Generation Applied to Capacitated Resource Management Problems

This research presents a very efficient method of solving a broad class of large-scale capacitated resource management problems by introducing a new formulation and decomposition. A heuristic called Likelihood of Assignment is utilized not only to find high quality initial integer feasible solutions, but also to guide the Branch-and-Price (B&P) Algorithm towards stabilization. Although Column … Read more

Locally Ideal Formulations for Piecewise Linear Functions with Indicator Variables

In this paper, we consider mixed integer linear programming (MIP) formulations for piecewise linear functions (PLFs) that are evaluated when an indicator variable is turned on. We describe modifications to standard MIP formulations for PLFs with desirable theoretical properties and superior computational performance in this context. CitationTechnical Report #1788, Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison.ArticleDownload … Read more

On the Transportation Problem with Market Choice

We study a variant of the classical transportation problem in which suppliers with limited capacities have a choice of which demands (markets) to satisfy. We refer to this problem as the transportation problem with market choice (TPMC). While the classical transportation problem is known to be strongly polynomial-time solvable, we show that its market choice … Read more

Incremental and Encoding Formulations for Mixed Integer Programming

The standard way to represent a choice between n alternatives in Mixed Integer Programming is through n binary variables that add up to one. Unfortunately, this approach commonly leads to unbalanced branch-and-bound trees and diminished solver performance. In this paper, we present an encoding formulation framework that encompasses and expands existing approaches to mitigate this … Read more

On the relative strength of families of intersection cuts arising from pairs of tableau constraints in mixed integer programs

We compare the relative strength of valid inequalities for the integer hull of the feasible region of mixed integer linear programs with two equality constraints, two unrestricted integer variables and any number of nonnegative continuous variables. In particular, we prove that the closure of Type~2 triangle (resp. Type~3 triangle; quadrilateral) inequalities, are all within a … Read more

Traveling Salesman Problem Formulations with \log N$ Number of Binary Variables

Abstract This paper presents a novel formulation for the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), utilizing a binary list data-structure allocating cities to its leaves to form sequentially the tour of the problem. The structure allows the elimination of subtours from the formulation and at the same time reducing the number of binary variables to ${\cal O}(N\log_{2}N)$. … Read more

A big bucket time indexed formulation for nonpreemptive single machine scheduling problems

A big bucket time indexed mixed integer linear programming formulation for nonpreemptive single machine scheduling problems is presented in which the length of each period can be as large as the processing time of the shortest job. The model generalises the classical time indexed model to one in which at most two jobs can be … Read more