Exercise 6 (ALNS heuristic for LSP)

1) In the ALNS heuristic framework one is trying to improve the current best solution. Sometimes the heurstic will stall in local minima. Discuss possibilities for overcoming (some) of this problem, i.e., how to diversify the search and avoid being trapped in local minima.

2) Sometimes it can be extremely hard to just find a feasible solution, and even if one is found by the construction heuristc the ALNS heuristic can have a hard time improving it. A limitation is that the ALNS heuristic repeatingly destroying and repairing the same current solution. An extension is to allow partial solutions to be accepted, i.e., solutions where not all production has been planned. Discuss how to evaluate a parital solution with regard to objective function and how give suggestions on how to compare it with feasible solutions.