ABSTRACT
Cutting and packing problems consist of placing a given set of (small) items into one or more (larger) containers without overlap so as to minimize/maximize a given objective function. This is a combinatorial optimization problem with many important applications in the wood, glass, steel and leather industries, as well as in large-scale integration (LSI) and very large-scale integration (VLSI) design, container and truck loading, and newspaper paging. For several decades, cutting and packing problems have attracted the attention of researchers in various areas including operations research, computer science and manufacturing.
