Valid Inequality and Variable Fixation for Unrestricted Block Relocation Problems

In modern logistics and smart warehouse, a terminal exists as a hub to connect multiple transportation modes and exchange goods. Solving a block relocation problem (BRP) arising from block retrieval processes in a terminal is fundamentally important to enhance the terminal's overall efficiency and save its energy. In this paper, we improve the state-of-the-art mixed integer programming (MIP) formulation of an unrestricted BRP by extracting valid inequalities from structural properties and proposing a new variable fixation method to solve it. Computational results show that the improved model can be optimally solved much more easily than the original model. Among over five-hundred benchmark instances with height limits, the improved model can solve 12.3% more than the original one. For the instances that can be optimally solved by the latter, the improved model shows six times faster speed than the latter. This work represents a significant advance in this important area.