A parallel solution to the cutting stock problem for a cluster of workstations

Abstract

The paper describes the design and implementation of a solution to the constrained 2D cutting stock problem on a cluster of workstations. The constrained 2D cutting stock problem is an irregular problem with a dynamically modified global data set and irregular amounts and patterns of communication. A replicated data structure is used for the parallel solution since the ratio of reads to writes is known to be large. Mutual exclusion and consistency are maintained using a token based lazy consistency mechanism, and a randomized protocol for dynamically balancing the distributed work queue is employed. Speedups are reported for three benchmark problems executed on a cluster of workstations interconnected by a 10 Mbps Ethernet.