Development of a Heuristic Algorithm for Cutting Stock Problems in Flat Glass Production Processes

摘要

Flat glass is widely employed in many applications such as for buildings and commercial products. It is the product of a series of chemical processes. In order to raise the profitability of flat glass companies, various issues in the process should be considered. An important but unexplored issue is minimization of the waste generated by cutting the original large sized mother glass into multiple items of small size. The resulting problem is called a cutting stock problem and is an important issue because of its financial impact. The profitability of a glass company is thus dependent on developing efficient algorithms to solve this problem. Motivated by the practical needs, a heuristic algorithm for the cutting stock problem is proposed to minimize the waste of the glass bin while meeting demand. Several case studies from actual flat glass companies are presented to illustrate the applicability of the algorithm with some remarks.