Even though the body of literature in the area of cutting and packing is growing rapidly, research seems to focus on standard problems in the first place, while practical aspects are less frequently dealt with. This is particularly true for setup processes which arise in industrial cutting processes whenever a new cutting pattern is started (i.e. a pattern is different from its predecessor) and the cutting equipment has to be prepared in order to meet the technological requirements of the new pattern. Setups involve the consumption of resources and the loss of production time capacity. Therefore, consequences of this kind must explicitly be taken into account for the planning and control of industrial cutting processes. This results in extensions to traditional models which will be reviewed here. We show how setups can be represented in such models, and we report on the algorithms which have been suggested for the determination of solutions of the respective models. We discuss the value of these approaches and finally point out potential directions of future research.
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