Analysis of Bin-packing Algorithms Used for Steel Beam Cut Optimization Analysis of Bin-packing Algorithms Used for Steel Beam Cut Optimization

The increasing steel price makes a tool with a high quality algorithm to reduce steel beam waste more important. The cut-optimization of stored steel beams is a classical cut-optimization problem with one exception, because beams are stored in several different lengths, the algorithm should not only deal with where a beam should be cut it should choose the appropriate length of stock beam to use as well. StålSpec 2000 is an application used by engineering workshops and companies which develop, manufacture or sell metal goods or products. The feature of the application discussed in this paper is the optimization of steel beam cuttings or more specifically the optimization algorithm. StålSpec 2000 is migrating from legacy procedural Visual Basic 6 code to modern component based C# code and it is not obvious which algorithm to use the new rewritten version of StålSpec is used as a case study. The effectiveness of five bin-packing algorithms was analyzed in the case study to find the most appropriate one to use. The case study result pointed out the current algorithm in StålSpec 2000 to be the best choice. The next rewritten version of StålSpec is going to contain a similar algorithm as its predecessor.