Combinatorial Optimization Problems

Combinatorial optimization problems possess a discrete special structure, such that it is very difficult to develop general purpose test problems, as well as general purpose software for solving them. For the exact solution of these problems, usually an equivalent integer programming formulation is provided to an IP solver, that uses branch and bound to solve it. For a suboptimal solution, many heuristic procedures have been refined over the years, and there exist procedures designed to provide suboptimal solutions to general combinatorial optimization problems, given that the problem has been put into some prespecified format.