6533b7dafe1ef96bd126f507

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Solving a large cutting problem in the glass manufacturing industry

subject

description

Abstract The glass cutting problem proposed by Saint Gobain for the 2018 ROADEF challenge includes some specific constraints that prevent the direct application of procedures developed for the standard cutting problem. On the one hand, the sheets to be cut have defects that make them unique and they must be used in a given order. On the other hand, pieces are grouped in stacks and the pieces in each stack must be cut in order. There are also some additional characteristics due to the technology being used, especially the requirement for a three-stage guillotine cutting process. Taking into account the sequencing constraints on sheets and pieces, we have developed a beam search algorithm, using a tree structure in which at each level the partial solution is increased by adding some new elements until a complete solution is built. We have developed a randomized constructive algorithm for building these new elements and explored several alternatives for the local and the global evaluation. An improvement procedure, specifically designed for the problem, has also been added. The computational study, using the datasets provided by the company, shows the efficiency of the proposed algorithm for short and long running times.