Date of Award

3-2001

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Operational Sciences

First Advisor

James T. Moore, PhD

Abstract

The Distributor's Pallet Packing Problem is to load a set of distinct boxes with given dimensions on pallets or in containers to maximize volume utilization. This problem is still in its early stages of research, but there is a high level of interest in developing effective models to solve this NP-hard problem to reduce the time, energy and other resources spent in packing pallets. In its search to improve operations, the Air Force is also making an effort to solve this problem. Building an analytical model and developing a genetic algorithm approach have been tried, but the problem needs more research and there is a need to produce realistic solutions in a reasonable amount of time. We develop a special heuristic algorithm and code it in the C programming language. In our model, we used powerful heuristic tools and dynamic data structure to mimic human behavior, providing a new solution approach to pallet packing. We created another program to visualize packing results. Tests on hundreds of problems show that our model makes the most of volume utilization in minimal time making it a leader among presented and published works.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GOR-ENS-01M-02

DTIC Accession Number

ADA391201

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