Integration of Lagrangean heuristics with exact algorithms to otimization of the set partitioning problem

Neste trabalho avaliamos mÃtodos heurÃsticos e exatos para o Problema de Particionamento de Conjuntos (PPC). Realizamos testes computacionais com heurÃsticas lagrangeanas baseadas em algoritmos gulosos, busca tabu e mÃtodo de otimizaÃÃo pelo subgradiente. Os resultados obtidos, comparados com os da literatura, comprovam a eficiÃncia de nossas heurÃsticas na obtenÃÃo de limites inferiores e superiores de boa qualidade, em tempo computacional razoÃvel, para instÃncias da literatura. Utilizamos um esquema de Branch and Bound para tentar resolver instÃncias do PPC ÃÂotimalidade e para comprovar a qualidade dos resultados alcanÃados por nossas heurÃsticas.In this work we evaluate both exact and heuristic methods for the set partitioning problem (SPP). These heuristics are based on greedy algorithms, tabu search and subgradient optimization. Computational experiments performed on benchmark instances of the problem indicate that our heuristics are competitive with existing ones from the literature in obtaining both lower and upper bounds of good quality in reasonable execution time. We use a Branch and Bound algorithm that allows to prove optimality of solutions obtained by our heuristics for a large set of benchmark instances of the SPP. Thus, we show that our heuristics are efficient in obtaining feasible solutions of good quality for this problem