A general-purposehill-climbingmethodfororderindependentminimumgrouping problems: Acasestudyingraphcolouringandbinpacking

A classofproblemsreferredtoas order independentminimumgroupingproblems is examinedandan intuitive hill-climbingmethodforsolvingsuchproblemsisproposed.Exampleapplicationsofthisgeneric method aremadetotwowell-knownproblemsbelongingtothisclass:graphcolouringandbinpacking. Using awidevarietyofdifferentprobleminstance-types,thesealgorithmsarecomparedtotwoother generic methodsforthisproblemtype:theiteratedgreedyalgorithmandthegroupinggeneticalgorithm. The resultsofthesecomparisonsindicatethatthepresentedapplicationsofthehill-climbingapproach are abletosignificantlyoutperformthesealgorithmsinmanycases.Anumberofreasonsforthese characteristics aregiveninthepresentedanalyses.