Heuristic methods for gang-rip saw arbor design

We consider the problem of design and scheduling of arbors for a computer assisted gang-rip saw system. Such systems are typically used within the furniture manufacturing industry for processing lumber. We discuss the computational complexity of the problem, and develop several heuristic procedures for solving it. These procedures are based on the principles of local improvement, simulated annealing and genetic algorithms. The results of a computational experiment are also presented.