Heuristic algorithm for the container loading problem with multiple constraints

This paper addresses the container loading problem with multiple constraints that occur at many manufacturing sites, such as furniture factories, appliances factories, and kitchenware factories. These factories receive daily orders with expiration dates, and each order consists of one or more items. On a particular day, certain orders expire, and the expiring orders must be handled (shipped) prior to the non-expiring ones. All of the items in an order must be placed in one container, and the volume of the container should be maximally utilized. A heuristic algorithm is proposed to standardize the packing of (order) items into a container. The algorithm chooses the expiring orders first before handling the non-expiring orders. In both steps, the algorithm first selects a collection of orders by considering a simulated annealing strategy and subsequently packs the collection of orders into the container via a tree graph search procedure. The validity of the algorithm is examined through experimental results using BR instances. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.