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Genetic algorithms have demonstrated considerable success in providing good solutions to many NP-hard optimization problems. For such problems, exact algorithms that always find an optimal solution are only useful for small toy problems, so heuristic algorithms such as the genetic algorithm must be used in practice. In this paper, we apply the genetic algorithm to the NP-hard problem of multiple fault diagnosis (MFD). We compare a pure genetic algorithm with several variants that include local improvement operators. These operators, which are often domain-specific, are used to accelerate the genetic algorithm in converging on optimal solutions. Our empirical results indicate that by using the appropriate local improvement operator, the genetic algorithm is able to find an optimal solution in all but a tiny fraction of the cases and at a speed orders of magnitude faster than exact algorithms.< >