A hybrid tabu search/branch & bound approach to solving the generalized assignment problem

A number of effective solution methods for the classical Generalised Assignment Problem (GAP) have been proposed during the last thirty years. Exact branch and bound approaches to solving GAP have been proposed by (Ross, Soland 1975, Martello, Toth 1990). More recently however heuristics have been utilised in order to reduce the size of the branch and bound tree by seeking good feasible solutions such as (Nauss 2003). In contrast to the branch and bound approach some highly efficient heuristic solution methods for GAP have been developed during the last ten years including (Beasley, Chu 1997, Diaz, Fernandez 2001, Laguna, Kelly et al. 1995, Narciso, Lorena 1999, Osman 1995, Yagiura, Ibaraki et al. 2004).