AbstractThis paper presents an efficient solution algorithm for the multiconstraint zero-one knapsack problem through a branch and bound search process. The algorithm has been coded in FORTRAN; and a group of thirty 5-constraint knapsack problems with 30-90 variables were run on IBM 360/75 using two other codes as well, in order to compare the computational efficiency of the proposed method with that of the original Balas and an improved Balas additive algorithms. The computational results show that the proposed method is markedly faster with regard to the total as well as the individual solution times for these test problems, and such superiority becomes more evident as the number of variables and the difficulty of the problems increase. The results also indicated that the original Balas method is extremely inefficient for the type of problems being considered here. The total solution time for the thirty problems is 13 min for the proposed method, 109 min for the improved Balas algorithm, and over 380 min for the original Balas algorithm. Extension of the solution algorithm to the generalized knapsack problem is also suggested.