A note on dual approximation algorithms for class constrained bin packing problems

Institute of Computing, University of Campinas, UNICAMP, P.O. Box 6176, 13083-970, Campinas, SP, Brazil; ecx@ic.unicamp.br; fkm@ic.unicamp.br

Received: 5 July 2006
Accepted: 21 August 2008

Abstract

In this paper we present a dual approximation scheme for the class constrained shelf bin packing problem. In this problem, we are given bins of capacity 1, and n items of Q different classes, each item e with class c_e and size s_e. The problem is to pack the items into bins, such that two items of different classes packed in a same bin must be in different shelves. Items in a same shelf are packed consecutively. Moreover, items in consecutive shelves must be separated by shelf divisors of size d. In a shelf bin packing problem, we have to obtain a shelf packing such that the total size of items and shelf divisors in any bin is at most 1. A dual approximation scheme must obtain a shelf packing of all items into N bins, such that, the total size of all items and shelf divisors packed in any bin is at most 1 + ε for a given ε > 0 and N is the number of bins used in an optimum shelf bin packing problem. Shelf divisors are used to avoid contact between items of different classes and can hold a set of items until a maximum given weight. We also present a dual approximation scheme for the class constrained bin packing problem. In this problem, there is no use of shelf divisors, but each bin uses at most C different classes.