Branch-and-Price

This open access book is a unique resource in computational mathematical optimization. It conveys the entire spectrum from the basic theory to the most advanced tricks in reformulations and decomposition approaches to solving mixed-integer linear programs. The book has useful and partly previously unpublished facts for students, teachers, and practitioners alike. The content covers algorithmic ideas like column generation, cutting planes, and branch-and-price, reformulation techniques like Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition and Lagrangian relaxation, the very important application domains of vehicle routing and crew scheduling, and has some practical advice when it comes to an implementation. Many notes and even more didactic illustrations and examples bring the theory to life, complemented by almost 140 exercises, including solutions. As a side effect, readers learn ways how to formulate integer programming models for a great variety of combinatorial optimization problems. The material