Planner insight for flat sheet industries

A method of generating optimal trimming patterns for trimming raw rolls and/or sheets for fulfillment of a flat sheet stock and/or customer orders that comprises:

• (a) receiving customer order specifications;
• (b) receiving primary machine specifications;
• (c) receiving secondary machine specifications;
• (d) receiving warehouse inventory specifications;
• (e) receiving trade constraints;
• (f) generating solutions for the following parameters (i) order quantity fulfillment, (ii) a primary cutting pattern for the primary machine, (iii) a secondary cutting pattern for the secondary machine, and (iv) inventory details, wherein the solutions are generated with consideration of the received trade constraints;
• (g) executing a batch and generating suggestions;
• (h) generating modified solutions for the parameters in step (f) using revised trade constraints derived from the suggestions generated in (g) wherein steps (f), (g) and (h) are executed with a Knapsack algorithm that employs a column generation approach and wherein the Knapsack algorithm has an objective function for minimizing of trim loss and has an objective which includes a duality of both upper and lower bound demand constraints with information related to trim loss and optimal usage;
• and
• (i) operating a cutting apparatus by:
• receiving a reel or sheet of material to be cut;
• configuring the cutting apparatus with the modified solutions generated in step (h);
• and
• operating the configured cutting apparatus to cut the reel or sheet of material into a plurality of smaller reels or sheets.