A generalized approach to the solution of one-dimensional stock-cutting problem for small shipyards

Abstract

A generalized approach is introduced for the optimization of one-dimensional cutting stock problem (ID-CSP), which occurs in wide variety of engineering manufacturing processes especially in ship building industry. Instead of making preliminary specifications and accordingly ignoring many alternative arrangements, the suggested optimization technique selectively considers feasible arrangements by eliminating majority of the possible but inefficient arrangements thus rendering the problem solvable for practical applications. The introduced approach, which minimizes the piece arrangement plans and trim losses in the material, achieves the ideal solution implied by the analytical methods. Another important advantage of the present method is its ability to produce integer results, which usually cannot be obtained by means of analytical methods used in linear programming. Overall, the solution of the problem has been drastically simplified even to allow hand calculations instead of long computer runs. Thus the introduced approach can be very functional for small shipyards and single boat builders. The introduced approach is evaluated by two numerical examples.