A new binary description of the blocks relocation problem and benefits in a look ahead heuristic

Abstract

We discuss the blocks relocation problem (BRP), a specific problem in storing and handling of uniform blocks like containers. The BRP arises as an important subproblem of major logistic processes, like container handling on ships or bays, or storing of palettes in a stacking area. Any solution method for the BRP has to work with the stacking area and needs to draw relevant information from there. The strength of related approaches may rely on the extensive search of neighborhood structures. For an efficient implementation, fast access to data of the current stacking area and an efficient transformation into neighboring states is needed. For this purpose, we develop a binary description of the stacking area that fulfills the aforementioned requirements. We implement the binary representation and use it within a look ahead heuristic. Comparing our results with those from literature, our method outperforms best known approaches in terms of solution quality and computational time. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009.