WORST-CASE ANALYSIS OF HEURISTICS FOR THE BIN PACKING PROBLEM WITH GENERAL COST STRUCTURES
成果类型：
Article
署名作者：
ANILY, S; BRAMEL, J; SIMCHILEVI, D
署名单位：
Columbia University
刊物名称：
OPERATIONS RESEARCH
ISSN/ISSBN：
0030-364X
DOI：
10.1287/opre.42.2.287
发表日期：
1994
页码：
287-298
关键词：
摘要：
We consider the famous bin packing problem where a set of items must be stored in bins of equal capacity. In the classical version, the objective is to minimize the number of bins used. Motivated by several optimization problems that occur in the context of the storage of items, we study a more general cost structure where the cost of a bin is a concave function of the number of items in the bin. The objective is to store the items in such a way that total cost is minimized. Such cost functions can greatly alter the way the items should be assigned to the bins. We show that some of the best heuristics developed for the classical bin packing problem can perform poorly under the general cost structure' On the other hand, the so-called next-fit increasing heuristic has an absolute worst-case bound of no more than 1.75 and an asymptotic worst-case bound of 1.691 for any concave and monotone cost function. Our analysis also provides a new worst-case bound for the well studied next-fit decreasing heuristic when the objective is to minimize the number of bins used.