Technical Note—A Flexible Tree-Search Method for Integer Programming Problems

This paper presents an enumerative method for solving integer programming problems. In the enumerative methods so far available, the variables are ranked in a rigid order by the choices in the forward steps, and backtracking always takes place on the last variable in this order. The proposed method allows a greater flexibility in the backtracking step that makes it possible to devise suitable rules of choice to improve the efficiency of the searching process. A numerical example is devised to illustrate the enumerative method in the direct-search case.