The Slab Design Problem

Given an order book, create a set of slabs such that the following constraints are satisifed

• packing constraints
• minimum and maximum weight for a slab

• number of slabs is minimized
• unassigned weight per slab is minimized

The proper formulation of the the slab design problem is bin packing with assigment restrictions and variable bin size, as described in Approximation Algorithms for the Multiple Knapsack Problem with Assignment Restrictions, IBM Research Report RC 21331 (96102).