A heuristic with tie breaking for certain 0–1 integer programming models

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Abstract
A heuristic for 0–1 integer programming is proposed that features a specific rule for breaking ties that occur when attempting to determine a variable to set to 1 during a given iteration. It is tested on a large number of small‐ to moderate‐sized randomly generated generalized set‐packing models. Solutions are compared to those obtained using an existing well‐regarded heuristic and to solutions to the linear programming relaxations. Results indicate that the proposed heuristic outperforms the existing heuristic except for models in which the number of constraints is large relative to the number of variables. In this case, it performs on par with the existing heuristic. Results also indicate that use of a specific rule for tie breaking can be very effective, especially for low‐density models in which the number of variables is large relative to the number of constraints.