AbstractThe current trend in pallet-loading software is for fast, interactive microcomputer packages. Because of the complexity of the problem, it is unlikely that any exact algorithm will guarantee to solve all typical pallet-loading problems within the sort of time range desirable for interactive use. Therefore, the packages tend to be based on heuristic solution methods. This paper describes a way of dealing with those problems which fail to solve within the given time limit. The discussion is in terms of a recent exact algorithm for the pallet-loading problem, but the methodology can be applied in conjunction with any algorithm for which the proportion of problems exceeding the time limit is small. The result is a piece of software which guarantees to solve any typical pallet-loading problem within a few minutes on an IBM-PC.