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EUROPEAN
JOURNAL
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RESEARCH
ELSEVIER
Abstract
In this paper a problem generator for the Standard One-dimensional Cutting Stock Problem (1D-CSP) is
developed, The problem is defined and its parameters are identified. Then it is shown what features have been
included in the program in order to allow for the generation of easily reproducible random problem instances.
Finally, by applying the generator a set of benchmark problems is identified.
1. Introduction
Cutting stock problems are amongst the earliest problems that have been studied through
methods of Operations Research (cf. Kantorovich, 1960). Despite the fact that they are a
regular feature of almost any introductory text
book on quantitative methods in business administration, cutting stock problems still attract much
attention from researchers all over the world. For
the past few years there even appears to be a
growing interest in the subject, documented by an
increasing number of publications (cf. the bibliographies given by Dyckhoff and Finke, 1992, or
Sweeney and Paternoster, 1992). In particular,
the development of exact algorithms faster than
existing ones and heuristic procedures providing
* Corresponding author.
solutions closer to the optimum is a central research issue, which may be due to the fact that
most standard problems related to cutting stock
are known to be NP-complete. However, the evidence that is published to verify the superiority of
an algorithm over others often turns out to be
rather poor. Instead of having tested algorithms
systematically, results are quoted only for a few more or less arbitrary - problems (cf. the problems presented in Pierce, 1964, Johnston, 1986,
or Stadtler, 1990).
One reason for this unsatisfactory approach is
a lack of appropriate test problems. Only very
few numerical examples have been published in
the literature (cf. the collection of one-dimensional cutting stock problems from the literature
in W~ischer and Gau, 1993). As these example
problems also appear to be very heterogeneous
they are of rather limited value for the evaluation
of algorithms. In order to provide a wider, less-bi-
SSDI 0 3 7 7 - 2 2 1 7 ( 9 5 ) 0 0 0 2 3 - 2
573
(1)
that satisfies
m
Standard
One-dimensional
Cutting
Stock
(2)
i=1
Problem
min
x 0= ~ x j
j=l
(3)
(4)
574
n
s.t.
~.,aij.xy>di,
i=l,...,m
(5)
j=l
xj > 0 and integer,
j= 1,...,n.
(6)
l i ~ [ v l . L , v2.L],
Table 1
Problem descriptors for the 1D-CSP
m
L
v1
v2
d
problem size
standard length
lower bound for the relative size of order lengths in
relation to L, i.e. I i >_ o1.L (i = 1..... m)
upper bound for the relative size of order lengths in
relation to L, i.e. l i < u2.L (i = 1 , . . . , m )
average demand per order length
min{lx,..., Ira}
L
'
i = 1 . . . . . m,
(7)
max{ll .....
v2 =
O<VI<V2<I.
In}
'
(8)
. . . . .
lm, dl . . . . . din).
(9)
z~ +1 = az, mod p
(10)
and
a=16807
(11)
575
n = 1, 2 , . . . .
(12)
p=aq+r,
q=[p/a],
r=pmoda,
(13)
( a ( z , mod q ) - r [ z ~ / q ]
I
az n moO p =
if a ( z , rood q ) - r [ z n / q ] > _ O ,
l a ( z , mod q) - r I z n / q ]
I
otherwise.
+p,
(14)
576
+ randi(0, 1),
The demands d i (i = 1 . . . . , m - 1) have been corrected by adding 0.5 in order not to systematically
under-estimate the demands d i (i = 1. . . . . m - 1)
which would result in a systematic over-estimation of the residual demand dm.
It can be noted that the actual total demand
Ejmldi may be insignificantly larger than D.
However, this appears to be reasonable as the
resulting influence on the average demand d is
neglectably small. Again, any other useful distribution could be implemented here just the same.
(15)
4.4. N u m e r i c a l example
(16)
If necessary, any other distribution could be implemented in the same way, as well. We note that
proceeding in the described way does not necessarily generate m different order lengths for a
problem instance of size m, because the possibility exists that identical order lengths may be
generated. This is particularly the case whenever
the size (v 2 - u 1 ) " L of the interval [v 1 L, v 2 L]
is not significantly larger than m. The generation
of m order lengths li, therefore, is followed by a
sorting procedure which arranges the order
lengths in a descending order. By doing so, the
material is not only p r e p a r e d for a clear presentation but also for the identification of identical
lengths, of which the demands are summed up
subsequently.
L=1000,
u 2 ~--- 0.625,
v1=0.375,
d = 50.
As seed for the pseudo-random number generator the year of preparation of this paper, 1994,
has been chosen. The problem generator provided 150 problem instances, of which the first
and the last one are presented in Table 2.
5. Benchmarking
The most prominent approach to the 1D-CSP
still is the (delayed) column-generation technique
4.3. D e t e r m i n a t i o n o f d e m a n d s
In order to generate demands d i for the different order lengths I i (i = 1 , . . . , m ) , the total
demand D = m " d is uniformly distributed between the various orders according to the following rules:
di = max{l, [di + 0.51},
di =
randi(0, 1)
D
E ~ = l r a n d k ( 0 , 1)
for i = l , . . . , m - 1 ,
(17)
dm=max
1, D -
(18)
Table 2
Selected problem instances of the numerical example
TEST0001
TEST0150
Standard length:1000
Standard length:1000
Order
Order
Order
Order
number length Demand number length Demand
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
577
570
544
539
526
512
504
459
446
378
63
64
85
84
54
20
24
31
48
27
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
570
558
543
540
513
490
476
453
434
16
94
20
99
59
48
78
35
51
577
Table 3
Benchmark problems
m v2
(1) (2)
(3) (4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
25
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
50
75
75
75
75
75
75
75
75
75
75
75
75
5
10
20
5
10
20
5
10
20
5
10
20
5
10
20
5
10
20
5
10
20
5
10
20
5
10
20
5
10
20
5
10
20
5
10
20
1
58
6
39
24
63
89
69
2
49
20
42
44
72
9
21
40
65
44
53
17
51
65
2
36
7
37
32
7
87
23
57
17
79
98
5
20.3837
45.8879
56.4626
23.9670
50.0431
90.5289
30.5309
69.7160
130.2372
51.7647
90.3702
187.9748
36.5610
77.4900
151.5581
55.1305
117.1508
221.7569
76.2785
137.0907
295.5587
109.2667
233.7778
440.0750
53.9684
107.1186
209.3922
92.0355
195.3100
378.2964
123.9193
252.9366
473.3400
136.0694
330.5000
679.7000
7.64
9.62
46.25
9.00
6.37
9.17
1.32
0.49
0.88
0.17
0.22
0.55
18.90
21.59
18.40
76.51
84.10
87.01
9.89
15.21
16.92
1.05
0.94
1.20
38.12
43.06
51.46
307.63
243.65
265.73
45.15
38.50
54.66
15.38
2.91
1.65
0.25
0.25
0,25
0.50
0,50
0.50
0.75
0.75
0.75
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.25
0.25
0.25
0.50
0.50
0.50
0.75
0.75
0.75
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.25
0.25
0.25
0.50
0.50
0.50
0.75
0.75
0.75
1.00
1.00
1.00
Seed
Optimum
Problem objective
Solution
No.
function value time (sec.)
2502505
2502510
2502520
2505005
2505010
2505020
2507505
2507510
2507520
2510005
2510010
2510020
5002505
5002510
5002520
5005005
5005010
5005020
5007505
5007510
5007520
5010005
5010010
5010020
7502505
7502510
7502520
7505005
7505010
7505020
7507505
7507510
7507520
7510005
7510010
7510020
578
R e m a r k . T h e p r o b l e m g e n e r a t o r a s d e s c r i b e d in
this paper may be obtained from the authors both
in s o u r c e - c o d e a n d as a v e r s i o n e x e c u t a b l e u n d e r
References
579