Effect of Local Branching on the Iterative Rounding-Based Method: The Case of k-Clustering Minimum Completion Problems

Abstract

In this paper, we study the effect of the local branching strategy on the iterative rounding solution procedure, especially when tackling the k-clustering minimum completion problem. The designed method is based upon three features: (i) proposing an enhancing basic rounding procedure for providing a starting/current solution, (ii) dropping a part of the structure of the current solution and completing it with and extended local search combined with local branching strategy and, (iii) embedding the aforementioned phases into an iterative search. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated on benchmark instances of the literature, where its achieved results are compared to those reached by the state-of-the-art Cplex solver and the best methods available in the literature. Encouraging results have been obtained.