A standard formulation of a real-world distribution problem could not be solved, even for a good solution, by a commercial mixed integer programming code. However, after reformulating it by reducing the number of 0-1 variables and tightening the linear programming relaxation, an optimal solution could be found efficiently. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate, with a real application, the practical importance of the need for good formulations in solving mixed integer programming problems.
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Barnhart et al. (1993) studied this question.