Objective Scaling Ensemble Approach for Integer Linear Programming

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new two-phase heuristic called the Objective Scaling Ensemble Approach for integer linear programming, which improves solution efficiency by aggregating partial solutions to reduce search space.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel ensemble heuristic that enhances ILP solving by modifying problem formulations based on aggregated partial solutions.

Findings

Outperforms standard ILP solution strategies on benchmark problems.

Effectively reduces search space and improves solution times.

Demonstrates broad applicability across various ILP problems.

Abstract

The objective scaling ensemble approach is a novel two-phase heuristic for integer linear programming problems shown to be effective on a wide variety of integer linear programming problems. The technique identifies and aggregates multiple partial solutions to modify the problem formulation and significantly reduce the search space. An empirical analysis on publicly available benchmark problems demonstrate the efficacy of our approach by outperforming standard solution strategies implemented in modern optimization software.