Checkerboard pattern: proposals for its generation

Checkerboard patterns, also known as 1-group patterns, belong to a special class of 2-stage guillotine patterns that do not need recuts. Such patterns are easier to cut, hence, they demand less machine time. They are of particular interest in high-demand settings when the machine is a bottleneck for production. We propose a heuristic and an exact method to determine such patterns. Both are two-phase methods: in the first phase, good combinations within strips are obtained and, afterwards, a good combination of strips is determined. Both methods outperform previous methods proposed in the literature, in terms of quality or in terms of computational times.