Technical Note—Computational Viability of a Constraint Aggregation Scheme for Integer Linear Programming Problems

We present the results of a computational evaluation of two constraint aggregation approaches for solving integer linear programs. In some applications, particularly set partitioning problems, the schemes can aggregate significantly different number of constraints. We first discuss the implementation of these approaches using both single and multiple precision arithmetic. From these results, we empirically show that, in practical implementation and evaluation of an aggregation scheme, the degree of difficulty encountered in solving the resulting equality constrained knapsack problem is crucial. We conclude, as contrasted with the optimism expressed in some published works, that the aggregation approach has limited value for solving general integer linear programs, but may be useful in developing a heuristic algorithm for the set partitioning problem.