Title: Solving a real world steel stacking problem

Authors: Sebastian Raggl; Andreas Beham; Fabien Tricoire; Michael Affenzeller

Addresses: Heuristic and Evolutionary Algorithms Laboratory, University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Softwarepark 11, 4232 Hagenberg, Austria ' Heuristic and Evolutionary Algorithms Laboratory, University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Softwarepark 11, 4232 Hagenberg, Austria; Institute for Formal Models and Verification, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Altenberger Straße 69, 4040 Linz, Austria ' Department of Business Administration, University of Vienna, Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1, 1090 Vienna, Austria; Institute of Production and Logistics Management, Johannes Kepler University, Altenberger Straße 69, 4040 Linz, Austria ' Heuristic and Evolutionary Algorithms Laboratory, University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Softwarepark 11, 4232 Hagenberg, Austria; Institute for Formal Models and Verification, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Altenberger Straße 69, 4040 Linz, Austria

Abstract: We present a real world steel slab stacking problem. The problem features continuous production and retrieval and non-instantaneous crane movements. There are stacking constraints, based on dimensions, weight and temperature of the slabs and temporal constraints based on the casting schedule, the delivery due times as well as the availability of rolling pallets for transport. We present a prioritisation heuristic for the possible crane movements. Based on this heuristic we build a branch and bound solver as well as a greedy look-ahead heuristic. We evaluate the heuristics using randomly generated problem instances of various sizes with the same characteristics as the real world problem and find that the greedy look-ahead heuristic outperforms the branch and bound approach when using realistic time limits.

Keywords: steel stacking; stacking problem; branch and bound; greedy heuristic; stacking constraints; continous production and retrieval.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSCOM.2018.091621

International Journal of Service and Computing Oriented Manufacturing, 2018 Vol.3 No.2/3, pp.94 - 108

Received: 14 May 2017
Accepted: 02 Nov 2017
Published online: 08 May 2018 *

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