Packing items into fixed number of bins
I am looking for an algorithm that will solve my problem in the most efficient way.

**Problem description:**

I have a list of items (only positive integers are allowed) and fixed number of bins of identical capacity. So far, I thought about branch-and-bound algorithm, but I am not quite sure if it is the best approach in this case.

**Example:**

Given a list of items:

    (3, 4, 4, 2, 3, 9, 2)
and three bins of capacity 9 each
I need to pack them this: (order of items is irrelevant)

    [3, 4, 2], [4, 3, 2], [9]

I think this is a variant of the bin-packing problem (which I know is NP-complete), but since I am not trying to minimize number of bins used I wonder if there is a better solution.
Packing items into fixed number of bins
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I am looking for an algorithm that will solve my problem in the most efficient way.

**Problem description:**

I have a list of items (only positive integers are allowed) and fixed number of bins of identical capacity. So far, I thought about branch-and-bound algorithm, but I am not quite sure if it is the best approach in this case.

**Example:**

Given a list of items:

    (3, 4, 4, 2, 3, 9, 2)
and three bins of capacity 9 each
I need to pack them this: (order of items is irrelevant)

    [3, 4, 2], [4, 3, 2], [9]

I think this is a variant of the bin-packing problem (which I know is NP-complete), but since I am not trying to minimize number of bins used I wonder if there is a better solution.