Fiddler on the roof – balancing trim loss and setups

An application of a classic one-dimensional cutting stock problem requires that large steel coils be slit into smaller customer required widths. In determining cutting patterns for this problem, both the amount of trim loss and the number of slitter setups are major economic concerns. In theory, the optimal solution to this problem is a weighted function of trim loss and number of setups. In practice, the values of the objective function cost coefficients are not readily available. In this paper, a strategy is discussed that has been used in practice to generate a set of optimal solutions for review by management.