A Less Flexibility First Based Algorithm for the Container Loading Problem

Abstract

This paper presents a Less Flexibility First (LFF) based algorithm for solving container loading problems in which boxes of given sizes are to be packed into a single container. The objective is to maximize volume utilization. LFF, firstly introduced in [An effective quasi-human heuristic for solving the rectangle packing problem, European Journal of Operations Research 141 (2002) 341], is an effective deterministic heuristic applied to 2D packing problems and generated up to 99% packing densities. Its usage is now extended to the container loading problem. Objects are packed according to their flexibilities. Less flexible objects are packed to less flexible positions of the container. Pseudo-packing procedures enable improvements on volume utilization. Encouraging packing results with up to 93% volume utilization are obtained in experiments running on benchmark cases from other authors.