Human strategies based allocation of two-dimensional irregular shapes

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Al-Assaf, Yousef

Affiliations: American University of Sharjah, P.O. Box 26666, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. E-mail: yassaf@aus.ac.ae

Abstract: In this work a heuristic approach for nesting irregular shapes is considered. The approach is based on extracting some of the human intuitive thoughts, and has the feature of minimizing raw material waste. We have tested the proposed algorithm assuming requirements that resemble various industrial stock cut needs. Our results were compared with those obtained from experienced operators and other heuristic approaches. It is demonstrated that our new approach yields good utilization performance, comparable to that achieved by expert operators, even for small-scale problems.

Keywords: cutting stock problem, heuristics, irregular shapes, textile nesting

Journal: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 181-190, 2003