The Two-Dimensional, Rectangular, Guillotineable-Layout Cutting Problem with Multiple Defects: A Dynamic Programming Approach

This research project deals with (two-dimensional) cutting problems in which defective material (e.g. steel plates) has to be cut down into smaller sheets of given sizes such that the value of the cut items is maximized. According to practical requirements, all cuts must be of the guillotine-type. In order to solve problems of this kind, several dynamic programming-based algorithms, both optimal and heuristic, will be developed. Moreover, the proposed algorithms will be evaluated in a series of numerical experiments that are performed on problem instances obtained from the literature as well as on randomly generated instances.