A Technique for Solving Distributor's Pallet Loading Problem (DPLP), Using Dynamic Programming

The Distributor’s Pallet Loading Problem consists of packing a fixed rectangular space (so-called pallet) with a subset of smaller rectangular shapes (so-called pieces) of different dimensions, which have different utility values, in such a way as to maximize the sum of the utility values of the packed pieces. Moreover, as the further objective function; it requires to as possible pack identical pieces as side by side, by means of applicability of the packing patterns. The present paper introduces a technique to solve the problem, in the way that includes a new idea to apply the dynamic programming and, as a matter of the second objective function. In each round of the proposed packing procedure loop, a part of pallet space is packed. The experimental results show that the proposed technique is better than the present methods in the state-of-the art, one the one hand, if solving time were better than packing value, on the other hand, as for packing identical pieces as side by side.