The Magnifying Glass Heuristic for the Generalized Quadratic Assignment Problem

We investigate the generalized quadratic assignment problem and introduce a number of mat- and metaheuristic algorithms. Especially highlighted is an improvement procedure, a so-called magnifying glass heuristic, which has already proved to be successful for the solving of traveling salesman problems. All approaches are validated on test instances from the literature and on a generated set of random instances. Results demonstrate a very appealing computational performance, offering a promising foundation for further developments of the base concept in different contexts.