More on ordered open end bin packing

Abstract

We consider the Ordered Open End Bin Packing problem. Items of sizes in (0, 1] are presented one by one, to be assigned to bins in this order. An item can be assigned to any bin for which the current total size is strictly below 1. This means also that the bin can be overloaded by its last packed item. We improve lower and upper bounds on the asymptotic competitive ratio in the online case. Specifically, we design the first algorithm whose asymptotic competitive ratio is strictly below 2, and its value is close to the lower bound. This is in contrast to the best possible absolute competitive ratio, which is equal to 2. We also study the offline problem where the sequence of items is known in advance, while items are still assigned to bins based on their order in the sequence. For this scenario, we design an asymptotic polynomial time approximation scheme.