The multi-fragment (MF) algorithm is a heuristic or approximation algorithm for the travelling salesman problem (TSP) (and related problems). This algorithm is also sometimes called the "greedy algorithm" for the TSP.
The algorithm builds a tour for the traveling salesman one edge at a time and thus maintains multiple tour fragments, each of which is a simple path in the complete graph of cities. At each stage, the algorithm selects the edge of minimal cost that either creates a new fragment, extends one of the existing paths or creates a cycle of length equal to the number of cities.
References
Johnson, David; A. McGeoch, Lyle (1997). "The Traveling Salesman Problem: A Case Study in Local Optimization". Local Search in Combinatorial Optimization. 1. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.92.1635. /wiki/CiteSeerX_(identifier) ↩