An Innovative Genetic Algorithm for a Multi-Objective Optimization of Two-Dimensional Cutting-Stock Problem

This paper addressed an important variant of two-dimensional cutting stock problem. The objective was not only to minimize trim loss, as in traditional cutting stock problems, but rather to minimize the number of machine setups. This additional objective is crucial for the life of the machines and affects both the time and the cost of cutting operations. Since cutting stock problems are well known to be NP-hard, we proposed an approximate method to solve this problem in a reasonable time. This approach differs from the previous works by generating a front with many interesting solutions. By this way, the decision maker or production manager can choose the best one from the set based on other additional constraints. This approach combined a genetic algorithm with a linear programming model to estimate the optimal Pareto front of these two objectives. The effectiveness of this approach was evaluated through a set of instances collected from the literature. The experimental results for different-size problems show that this algorithm provides Pareto fronts very near to the optimal ones.     

Heuristic and exact algorithms for generating homogenous constrained three-staged cutting patterns

An approach is proposed for generating homogenous three-staged cutting patterns for the constrained two-dimensional guillotine-cutting problems of rectangles. It is based on branch-and-bound procedure combined with dynamic programming techniques. The stock plate is divided into segments. Each segment consists of strips with the same direction. Only homogenous strips are allowed, each of which contains rectangles of the same size. The approach uses a tree-search procedure. It starts from an initial lower bound, implicitly generates all possible segments through the builds of strips, and constructs all possible patterns through the builds of segments. Tighter bounds are established to discard non-promising segments and patterns. Both heuristic and exact algorithms are proposed. The computational results indicate that the algorithms are capable of dealing with problems of larger scale. Finally, the solution to a cutting problem taken from a factory that makes passenger cars is given.     

基于价值修正的圆片下料顺序启发式算法

讨论圆片剪冲下料方案的设计问题。下料方案由一组排样方式组成。首先构造一种生成圆片条带最优四块排样方式的背包算法,然后采用基于价值修正的顺序启发式算法迭代调用上述背包算法,每次都根据生产成本最小的原则改善目标函数并修正各种圆片的当前价值,按照当前价值生成一个新的排样方式,最后选择最优的一组排样方式组成下料方案。采用文献中的基准测题将文中下料算法与文献中T 型下料算法和启发式下料算法分别进行比较。实验计算结果表明,该算法的材料利用率比T 型下料算法和启发式下料算法分别高0.83%和3.63%,且计算时间在实际应用中合理。     

Near-optimal solutions to one-dimensional cutting stock problems

This paper describes a set of heuristic procedures for efficiently generating good solutions to one-dimensional cutting stock problems in which (i) there are multiple stock lengths with constraints on their availability, (ii) it is desirable to cut the trim into as few pieces as possible and (iii) it is difficult because of the problem's structure, to round fractional, LP solutions to good feasible cutting plans. The point of departure for the procedures is the column generation technique of Gilmore and Gomory. The computational experience reported here suggests that the heuristics are both effective and efficient.     

Row and column generation technique for a multistage cutting stock problem

The multistage cutting stock problem (CSP) generalizes the one-dimensional CSP when a lengthwise cutting process is distributed over two or more successive stages. At every stage of the cutting process incoming rolls are slit into smaller rolls by width. The problem is to minimize total trim loss occurring at all stages of technological process meeting customer demands for finished rolls. We propose a row and column generation technique for solving the multistage one-dimensional CSP. The technique is a generalization of the column generation method suggested by Gilmore and Gomory for solving a classic CSP. The procedure generates only those intermediate rolls (rows) and cutting patterns (columns) that are needed. An auxiliary problem embedded into the frame of the revised simplex algorithm is a non-linear knapsack problem that can be solved efficiently. Computational results prove the overall method is a valuable addition to the tool set for modeling and solving the multistage CSP.Scope and purposeWe investigate a broad class of large-scale linear programming models and suggest a new and efficient way to solve them. The proposed method belongs to a category of decomposition techniques generalizing the famous column generation method. An iteration of the revised simplex algorithm may “enrich” the LP matrix either by generating a new column, as a purely column generation method does, or by generating a combination of a new row and a pair of new columns. The method is a row and column generation technique that we propose and investigate. Applications modeled by a multistage CSP occur in the industries that use a multistage cutting process: paper, leather, film, steel, etc., or a nested packing/loading process: transportation. The unknown variables in the multistage cutting stock problem are intermediate sizes (rows) and cutting patterns (columns). According to the algorithm both are to be generated dynamically. The proposed algorithm brings tremendous benefits in terms of the quality of solutions and computational performance.     

In situ column generation for a cutting-stock problem

Working with an integer bilinear programming formulation of a one-dimensional cutting-stock problem, we develop an ILP-based local-search heuristic. The ILPs holistically integrate the master and subproblem of the usual price driven pattern-generation paradigm, resulting in a unified model that generates new patterns in situ. We work harder to generate new columns, but we are guaranteed that new columns give us an integer linear-programming improvement (rather then the continuous linear-programming improvement sought by the usual price driven column generation). The method is well suited to practical restrictions such as when a limited number of cutting patterns should be employed, and our goal is to generate a profile of solutions trading off trim loss against the number of patterns utilized. We describe our implementation and results of computational experiments on instances from a chemical-fiber company.     

Efficient primal-dual heuristic for a dynamic location problem

In this paper the dynamic location problem with opening, closure and reopening of facilities is formulated and an efficient primal-dual heuristic that computes both upper and lower limits to its optimal solution is described. The problem here studied considers the possibility of reconfiguring any location more than once over the planning horizon. This problem is NP-hard (the simple plant location problem is a special case of the problem studied). A primal-dual heuristic based on the work of Erlenkotter [A dual-based procedure for uncapacitated facility location. Operations Research 1978;26:992–1009] and Van Roy and Erlenkotter [A dual-based procedure for dynamic facility location. Management Science 1982;28:1091–105] was developed and tested over a set of randomly generated test problems. The results obtained are quite good, both in terms of the quality of lower and upper bounds calculated as in terms of the computational time spent by the heuristic. A branch-and-bound procedure that enables to optimize the problem is also described and tested over the same set of randomly generated problems.     

The usable leftover one‐dimensional cutting stock problem—a priority‐in‐use heuristic

We consider a one‐dimensional cutting stock problem in which the material not used in the cutting patterns, if large enough, is kept for use in the future. Moreover, it is assumed that leftovers should not remain in stock for a long time, hence, such leftovers have priority‐in‐use compared to standard objects (objects bought by the industry) in stock. A heuristic procedure is proposed for this problem, and its performance is analyzed by solving randomly generated dynamic instances where successive problems are solved in a time horizon. For each period, new demands arise and a new problem is solved on the basis of the information about the stock of the previous periods (remaining standard objects in the stock) and usable leftovers generated during those previous periods. The computational experiments show that the solutions presented by the proposed heuristic are better than the solutions obtained by other heuristics from the literature.     

A combined approach to the solution to the general one-dimensional cutting stock problem

In this article a combined method for the solution to the general one-dimensional cutting stock problem (G1D-CSP) is proposed. The main characteristic of G1D-CSP lies in that all stock lengths can be different. The new approach combines two existing methods: sequential heuristic procedure (SHP) and branch-and-bound. The algorithm based on the proposed method leads to almost optimal solutions, which are substantially better than the solutions of known methods at the expense of slightly increased time complexity, which is still low. So, the new method is suitable for all sizes of the problem. A comparison with the SHP is presented.     

A new cutting-stock heuristic for scheduling production

This study interprets a scheduling problem in the woven fiberglass industry as an example of the cutting-stock problem; where wasted production capacity rather than wasted material is to be controlled. The solution is complicated due to the need to consider setup costs, so a heuristic is developed and tested. Comparison to one company's a historical production decisions indicates that both wasted capacity and setup Costs can be substantially reduced through application of the heuristic.     

Sequential value correction heuristic for the two-dimensional cutting stock problem with three-staged homogenous patterns

A sequential value correction heuristic is presented for the two-dimensional cutting stock problem with three-staged homogenous patterns, considering both input-minimization and simplicity of the cutting process. The heuristic constructs many cutting plans iteratively and selects the best one as the solution. The patterns in each cutting plan are generated sequentially using simple recursive techniques. The values of the item types are corrected after the generation of each pattern to diversify the cutting plans. Computational results indicate that the proposed heuristic is more effective in input minimization than published algorithms and commercial stock cutting software packages that use three-staged general or exact patterns.     

求解板材排料问题的新方法

§１．引言 板材排料问题是家具、包装、地毯等行业常见的一个问题．它是指将一批不同种类的待排矩形件全部排放在给定的板材上,使排料所用的板材数量尽可能地少,即板材的利用率尽可能地高．实质上是一个组合优化的二维布局问题,从计算复杂性来看,是一个ＮＰ完全问题,但至今还没有找到解决该问题的有效多项式时间算法．寻求其近似最优解的近似算法是目前解决该问题的途径之一． 国内外已有不少学者在布局问题方面作了一些研究．如有用模拟退火算法解决大规模排料问题,但其解过分依赖于模拟退火算法冷却进度表的参数的选取,而且该算法…     

Constrained two-dimensional cutting stock problems a best-first branch-and-bound algorithm

In this paper, we develop a new version of the algorithm proposed in Hifi (Computers and Operations Research 24/8 (1997) 727–736) for solving exactly some variants of (un)weighted constrained two-dimensional cutting stock problems. Performance of branch-and-bound procedure depends highly on particular implementation of that algorithm. Programs of this kind are often accelerated drastically by employing sophisticated techniques. In the new version of the algorithm, we start by enhancing the initial lower bound to limit initially the space search. This initial lower bound has already been used in Fayard et al. 1998 (Journal of the Operational Research Society, 49, 1270–1277), as a heuristic for solving the constrained and unconstrained cutting stock problems. Also, we try to improve the upper bound at each internal node of the developed tree, by applying some simple and effcient combinations. Finally, we introduce some new symmetric-strategies used for neglecting some unnecessary duplicate patterns . The performance of our algorithm is evaluated on some problem instances of the literature and other hard-randomly generated problem instances.     

A heuristic procedure for the integrated facility layout design and flow assignment problem

We present an efficient iterative heuristic procedure for solving the integrated layout design and product flow assignment problem. The layout design decisions involve planar location of unequal-area machines with duplicates. The product flows are assigned to machines according to the product processing routes. The integrated decision problem is a nonlinear mixed integer model which cannot be efficiently solved using classical methods for large problems. We propose a novel integrated heuristic procedure based on the alternating heuristic, a perturbation algorithm and sequential location heuristic. Since the alternating heuristic between facility layout design and product-machine assignment sub-problems terminates with local optima, we developed a perturbation algorithm based on assignment decisions. The results of an experimental study show that proposed procedure is both efficient and effective in identifying quality solutions for small to very large-sized problems.     

A quadra-directional decomposition heuristic for a two-dimensional,non-equidistant machine-cell location problem

After the development of numerous cell formation techniques, machine-cell location (MCL) problems have been the focus of many researchers in cellular manufacturing systems. With the cost cutting strategy, locating machines within the cell itself has not only been the major concern of management, but also the location of cells with respect to each other on a spatial coordinate system to minimize the transportation cost or job movement costs. For lack of being able to solve a large problem optimally, a number of heuristics have been developed for one-dimensional machine and MCL problems. The problem still exists for locating machine-cells on spatial coordinates, which has been addressed in this research. The location coordinates have been decomposed into four movements, backward, forward, upward and downward; and the MCL problem is formulated as a linear combination of these four decomposed (partitioned) objective functions subject to other boundary conditions. A quadra-directional decomposition heuristic (QDDH) is developed to find a sub-optimal solution to the MCL problem. The decomposition procedure for four objective functions is presented and the performance of the heuristic is tested on a set of well-known data. Empirical tests show that the solution procedure produces efficient, good quality solutions for different sizes of the problem instances.     

An improved heuristic for parallel machine weighted flowtime scheduling with family set-up times

This paper studies the identical parallel machine scheduling problem with family set-up times and an objective of minimizing total weighted completion time (weighted flowtime). The family set-up time is incurred whenever there is a switch of processing from a job in one family to a job in another family. A heuristic is proposed in this paper for the problem. Computational results show that the proposed heuristic outperforms an existing heuristic, especially for large-sized problems, in terms of both solution quality and computation times. The improvement of solution quality is as high as 4.753% for six-machine problem and 7.822% for nine-machine problem, while the proposed heuristic runs three times faster than the existing one.     

A hybrid heuristic to reduce the number of different patterns in cutting stock problems

We propose a hybrid procedure to obtain a reduced number of different patterns in cutting stock problems. Initially, we generate patterns with limited waste that fulfill the demands of at least two items when the patterns are repeatedly cut as much as possible but without overproducing any of the items. The problem is reduced and the residual problem is solved. Then, pattern reduction techniques (local search) are applied starting with the generated solution. The scheme is straightforward and can be used in cutting stock problems of any dimension. Variations of the procedure are also indicated. Computational tests performed indicated that the proposed scheme provides alternative solutions to the pattern reduction problem which are not dominated by other solutions obtained using procedures previously suggested in the literature.     

Unidirectional loop network layout by a LP heuristic and design of telecommunications networks

In this paper, we present a new linear programming-based heuristic procedure for optimal design of the unidirectional loop network layout problem. The heuristic procedure employs a linear programming formulation and solves the problem using the flow matrix of the unidirectional loop problem. To find an optimal solution, one can either generate all possible solutions or use a branch-and-bound procedure. But, both above methods require very high computational time and computer memory for larger problems. The heuristic developed in this paper is quite fast and obtains near optimal solutions. The heuristic procedure was tested on 16 different problems selected from the literature. The results showed that in most cases optimal—and in a few cases near optimal—solutions were obtained with very little computational time. Several examples are discussed. We also demonstrate that the above problem formulation and approach can be used to solve a special class of telecommunication networks where a set of computers (or processors) are attached by unidirectional point-to-point links around a loop.     

On the one-dimensional stock cutting problem in the paper tube industry

The one-dimensional cutting stock problem (1D-CSP) is one of the representative combinatorial optimization problems which arises in many industrial applications. Although the primary objective of 1D-CSP is to minimize the total length of used stock rolls, the efficiency of cutting processes has become more important in recent years. The crucial bottleneck of the cutting process often occurs at handling operations in semiautomated manufacturers such as those in the paper tube industry. To reduce interruptions and errors at handling operations in the paper tube industry, we consider a variant of 1D-CSP that minimizes the total length of used stock rolls while constraining (C1) the number of setups of each stock roll type, (C2) the combination of piece lengths occurring in open stacks simultaneously, and (C3) the number of open stacks. For this problem, we propose a generalization of the cutting pattern called the “cutting group,” which is a sequence of cutting patterns that satisfies the given upper bounds of setups of each stock roll type and open stacks. To generate good cutting groups, we decompose the 1D-CSP into a number of auxiliary bin packing problems. We develop a tabu search algorithm based on a shift neighborhood that solves the auxiliary bin packing problems by the first-fit decreasing heuristic algorithm. Experimental results show that our algorithm improves the quality of solutions compared to the existing algorithm used in a paper tube factory.     

A genetic algorithm approach for the cutting stock problem

In this paper, a genetic algorithm approach is developed for solving the rectangular cutting stock problem. The performance measure is the minimization of the waste. Simulation results obtained from the genetic algorithm-based approach are compared with one heuristic based on partial enumeration of all feasible patterns, and another heuristic based on a genetic neuro-nesting approach. Some test problems taken from the literature were used for the experimentation. Finally, the genetic algorithm approach was applied to test problems generated randomly. The simulation results of the proposed approach in terms of solution quality are encouraging when compared to the partial enumeration-based heuristic and the genetic neuro-nesting approach.