A simulated annealing approach to the nesting problem in the textile manufacturing industry

The nesting problem in the textile industry is the problem of placing a set of irregularly shaped pieces (called stencils) on a rectangular surface, such that no stencils overlap and that the trim loss produced when cutting out the stencils is minimized. Certain constraints may put restrictions on the positions and orientation of some stencils in the layout but, in general, the problem is unconstrained. In this paper, an algorithmic approach using simulated annealing is presented covering a wide variety of constraints which may occur in the industrial manufacturing process. The algorithm has high performance, is quite simple to use, is extensible with respect to the set of constraints to be met, and is easy to implement.