AN ALGORITHM FOR THE 2-DIMENSIONAL ASSORTMENT PROBLEM

Consideration is given to the two-dimensional assortment problem. This is the problem of choosing from a set of stock rectangles a subset which can be used for cutting into a number of smaller rectangular pieces. Constraints are imposed upon the number of such pieces which result from the cutting. A heuristic algorithm for the guillotine cutting version of the problem is developed based on a greedy procedure for generating two-dimensional cutting patterns, a linear program for choosing the cutting patterns to use and an interchange procedure to decide the best subset of stock rectangles to cut. Computational results are presented for a number of test problems which indicate that the algorithm developed produces good quality results both for assortment problems and for two-dimensional cutting problems.