This paper considers the generalized assignment problem (GAP). It is a well-known NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem that is interesting in itself and also appears as a subproblem in other problems of practical importance. A Tabu search heuristic for the GAP is proposed. The algorithm uses recent and medium-term memory to dynamically adjust the weight of the penalty incurred for violating feasibility. The most distinctive features of the proposed algorithm are its simplicity and

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... ility. These two characteristics result in an algorithm that, compared to other well-known heuristic procedures, provides good quality solutions in competitive computational times. Computational experiments have been performed in order to evaluate the behavior of the proposed algorithm. Ó