Combinatorial Benders’ Cuts

Mixed-Integer Programs (MIP’s) involving logical implications modelled through big-M coefficients, are notoriously among the hardest to solve. In this paper we propose and analyze computationally an automatic problem reformulation of quite general applicability, aimed at removing the model dependency on the big-M coefficients. Our solution scheme defines a master Integer Linear Problem (ILP) with no continuous variables, which contains combinatorial information on the integer-variable feasible combinations that can be “distilled” from the original MIP model. The master solutions are sent to a slave Linear Program (LP), which validates them and possibly returns combinatorial inequalities to be added to the current master ILP. The inequalities are associated to minimal (or irreducible) infeasible subsystems of a certain linear system, and can be separated efficiently in case the master solution is integer. This produces an LP relaxation of the master problem which can be considerably tighter than the one associated with original MIP formulation. Computational results on two specific classes of hard-to-solve MIP’s indicate the new method produces a reformulation which can be solved some orders of magnitude faster than the original MIP model.