Planning the cutting of photographic color paper rolls for Kodak (Australasia) Pty. Ltd

At Kodak (Australasia) the author addressed the problem of diagramming small customer rolls from large bulk rolls of expensive photographic color paper. Certain characteristics of the problem led to a new innovative approach, for example, the need for the majority of customer rolls to be splice free and a lack of homogeneity in the raw material. The author based his system on a two-phase integer programming approach. At phase 1, a suite of integer models are solved using a ‘look-ahead’ strategy to generate a set of alternatives for phase 2 to select from. Since, implementation diagramming waste has improved by over 50 percent, yielding benefits in excess of $2 million in the first year. Other benefits include increased productivity of the cutting machine, less time devoted to diagramming, an increased ability to move to a shorter planning horizon, and the capability to better match supply to demand.