Title: A TOC-based heuristic algorithm for solving a two-row pattern container loading problem

Authors: Yuan Liu, Yajie Tian, Tetsuo Sawaragi

Addresses: Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan. ' Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan. ' Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan

Abstract: The container loading problem, a real hard problem, is usually difficult to obtain even a suboptimal solution because of not only multiple complicated restrictions but also of multiple objectives. In this paper, a heuristic algorithm is proposed for solving the two-row pattern of the container loading problem in real-world. The algorithm is based on Drum-Buffer-Rope (DBR) presented in the Theory of Constraints (TOC) and the multiagent cooperative negotiation model. A particular attention is focused on improving the constrained agent by striving for the trade-off of restrictions and cooperative negotiations, so that the final solution can arrive its biggest profit.

Keywords: container loading problem; theory of constraints; TOC; drum-buffer-rope; DBR; two-row pattern; cooperative negotiation; multi-agent models; multi-agent systems; agent-based systems; restrictions.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOI.2007.015639

International Journal of Services Operations and Informatics, 2007 Vol.2 No.4, pp.339 - 356

Published online: 06 Nov 2007 *

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