An Automatic Method of Solving Discrete Programming Problems

In the late 1950s there was a group of teachers and research assistants at the London School of Economics interested in linear programming and its extensions, in particular Helen Makower, George Morton, Ailsa Land and Alison Doig. We had considered the ‘Laundry Van Problem’ until we discovered that it was known as the Traveling Salesman Problem, and had looked at aircraft timetabling, until quickly realizing that even the planning for the Scottish sector was beyond our capability! Alison Doig (now Harcourt) had studied the paper trim problem for her Masters project in Melbourne before coming to England.