Yunqing Rao - Intelligent Algorithms for Packing and Cutting Problem

The book series Engineering Applications of Computational Methods addresses the numerous applications of mathematical theory and latest computational or numerical methods in various fields of engineering. It emphasizes the practical application of these methods, with possible aspects in programming. New and developing computational methods using big data, machine learning and AI are discussed in this book series, and could be applied to engineering fields, such as manufacturing, industrial engineering, control engineering, civil engineering, energy engineering and material engineering.

The book series Engineering Applications of Computational Methods aims to introduce important computational methods adopted in different engineering projects to researchers and engineers. The individual book volumes in the series are thematic. The goal of each volume is to give readers a comprehensive overview of how the computational methods in a certain engineering area can be used. As a collection, the series provides valuable resources to a wide audience in academia, the engineering research community, industry and anyone else who are looking to expand their knowledge of computational methods.

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The two-dimensional packing and cutting problem widely exist in the production fields of machinery, electronics, ships, bridges, furniture, garments, leather, paper, glass, and other industries. The research and application development of optimized packing and cutting technology has been one of the hot issues of concern to both academia and industry since it can bring huge economic and social benefits. On the one hand, the application of this technology can reduce the labor intensity of employees, greatly improve the efficiency of packing, material utilization, and cutting efficiency, and help enterprises to reduce production costs, thus bringing them considerable economic benefits; on the other hand, it supports the concept of green manufacturing and helps the development of intelligent manufacturing technology. Through intelligent algorithms to optimize the packing, even a one percent increase in the material utilization rate will save lots of resource costs for enterprises and generate huge economic benefits for the whole society. Taking the machinery manufacturing industry as an example, the consumption of steel is great, especially in heavy industries such as heavy machinery, construction machinery, locomotives, ships, bridges, and other heavy industries where steel structure parts are mainly manufactured. By applying the intelligent optimization technology of packing and cutting in these industries, it is of great significance of not only reducing the manufacturing costs and improving economic efficiency but also saving resources and reducing energy consumption and emission reduction for the whole society.

The authors and their research team have started the research and application development of packing and cutting problem since the early 1990s, and the R&D results have been successfully applied in industrial production. In recent years, with the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and other funds, we have conducted more systematic and in-depth research on packing and cutting problem in combination with evolving intelligent optimization technology, have worked closely with relevant enterprises to carry out application research in the manufacturing industries of heavy machinery, construction machinery, special vehicles, port machinery, pressure vessels, steel structures, ships, bridges, printed circuit boards (PCB), transformers, etc., and have achieved large economic and social benefits. This book is a collection of our achievements in algorithm research, software development, and application in recent years. The main contents of this book include a variety of intelligent algorithms developed for rectangular and irregular packing and cutting problem, related software systems developed based on these algorithms, as well as their applications in industry.

The content of this book can be divided into four major parts, which describes in detail the mathematical modeling of 2D packing and cutting problem, intelligent solving algorithms, integrated software system design and development, and its engineering application cases. The first part is the introduction, which introduces the basic concepts of the two-dimensional packing and cutting problem, research status, and development trends. The second part is the study of algorithms for 2D packing problem, including the intelligent algorithms for rectangular packing problem, the intelligent algorithms for irregular packing problem, the new methods of 2D packing problem based on machine learning algorithms, and several special variants of packing problem and their solution methods. The third part is the study of the cutting problem, including the integrated technology and system development of 2D packing and plate cutting processing, and the intelligent algorithms for the plate cutting scheduling problem. The fourth part introduces several practical application cases of the methods presented in this book.