A polynomially solvable case of the pooling problem

Abstract

Answering a question of Haugland, we show that the pooling problem with one pool and a bounded number of inputs can be solved in polynomial time by solving a polynomial number of linear programs of polynomial size. We also give an overview of known complexity results and remaining open problems to further characterize the border between (strongly) NP-hard and polynomially solvable cases of the pooling problem.