A vulcanising decision planning as a particular one-dimensional cutting stock problem with limited part-related tooling in make-to-order industrial environments

A specialised case of the classical one-dimensional cutting stock problem (1D-CSP) with six main additional features is adapted in this paper to model and solve planning unit operations with limited resources in the make-to-order industrial environment, generating a new decision-making problem. The objective is to satisfy demand using the minimum number of manufacturing cycles. Although there is a large number of applications, this paper proposes a decision model directed at the vulcanising operation during the manufacturing of rubber curved hoses in the automotive industry. Because each vulcanising cycle (VC) uses a considerable amount of resources, the need to minimise the total number of VCs is of importance due to its direct relationship with lead time and productivity. An integer-programming model based on a network optimisation formulation is proposed to solve the problem to optimality and allows for construction of the mathematical model. In addition, due to the limited capacity of computers to solve large instances, a heuristic is developed to obtain near-optimal solutions. Scheduling issues are found in the optimal solution of the integer-programming model, but the heuristic overcomes such obstacles. Numerical experiments demonstrate the efficiency of the heuristic.