A Framework for Integrating Solution Methods

We describe a modeling framework that integrates mathematical programming (MP), constraint programming (CP) and heuristic methods. It is extendible to other solution methods as well. The problem structure is mirrored in the model structure, and the solver exploits this structure in a principled way to combine methods effectively. The approach generalizes and extends past research on the integration of MP and CP. Six modeling examples are given. In particular, it is shown that a recent integration scheme for CP and MP based on Benders decomposition is a special case of the framework described here.

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