An Optimization Model to Minimize Cutting Waste in Medical Container Manufacturing

This paper describes a linear programming model and its application to minimize cutting waste in the production of medical containers in a medical container production facility. Containers are manufactured from aluminum sheets, which are cut from large sheets. Most of the waste in manufacturing of containers was due to cutting operations. Because of the large number of alternative combinations of cutting patterns, it was necessary to optimize the process by applying mathematical modeling approach so that the waste was minimized. The linear programming model developed in this paper proved to be a valuable optimization tool in minimizing the waste.