Simulated annealing is a stochastic process that has
proven to be an effective method for approximating globally optimum solutions to many types of
combinatorial optimization problems. The major
drawback to the simulated annealing algorithm is
its typically very long iunning times. Several methods have been proposed for accelerating the simulated annealing algorithm. One method is to
replace a significant portion of the stochastic operations with a fast heuristic. Simulated annealing
can then begin from a lower starting temperaturea latter stage of the algorithm-to further improve
the resulting heuuistic's solution. This paper presents a method for approximating this starting temperature in general, as well as experience with twostage systems for solving the VLSI partitioning and
the traveling salesperson problems.