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Introduction to Cutting and Packing Optimization

Guntram Scheithauer
Publisher: 
Springer
Publication Date: 
2017
Number of Pages: 
410
Format: 
Hardcover
Series: 
International Series in Operations Research and Management Science
Price: 
109.00
ISBN: 
9783319644028
Category: 
Monograph
[Reviewed by
Tom Schulte
, on
07/10/2018
]

Here is an encompassing overview of cutting and packing optimization featuring modelling approaches and algorithms arranged by problem type. Models vary in basis: integer programming, linear programming, set-theoretic, graphical and more. Pseudocode presentation of algorithms makes the suggestions ready to implement. While exercises and solutions complete the needs as a textbook, the pseudocode and real-world basis of the models complete this as a basic field manual.

On the practical side, there is much advice on implementing heuristics, bounding, relaxations, pruning and other simplifying approaches to taming (typically NP-hard) problems when they appear in the wild. From simple to more complex problems, the development is an effective pedagogical strategy while also offering fundamental knowledge for practitioners faced with cutting and packing challenges in two or three dimensions.

The exploration of “packability of a given set of objects within a predefined container” from one linked example to the next culminates around timber and pallets. Drawing on earlier material, the timber-sawing chapter considers the quality restrictions of avoiding knots and other imperfections while maximizing extraction of finished lumber in varied of sizes from a single log. Pallet loading brings in similar practical considerations of variety by optimized palletization of batches of mixed cartons.


Tom Schulte nearly daily sets books aside to range far on the St. Tammany Trace biking path in Louisiana.

See the table of contents in the publisher's webpage.