Operations sequencing in discrete parts manufacturing

This paper presents an algorithm for efficiently sequencing the cutting operations associated with the manufacture of discrete parts on a CNC machine. The problem is first modeled as an integer program but recast via Lagrangian relaxation as a min-cut problem on a bipartite network. Tight lower bounds are obtained with a max-flow algorithm. The corresponding solution is used as input to a greedy heuristic which generates ‘good’ feasible points. Given nonconvergence, a branch and bound strategy is used to find the optimal solution.