Cutting stock process optimisation in custom door and window manufacturing industry

In this paper we present a decision support system that has been developed to address the short-term scheduling and the medium-term planning decisions that need to be taken by companies operating in the custom door and window manufacturing industry. The modules of the proposed DSS are presented with an emphasis on the model module which implements variations of two well known cutting stock heuristic algorithms that have been modified to support the evaluation of alternative leftover handling policies. Real data obtained by a small Greek company were used for a 'what if' analysis using the proposed DSS. The results obtained, are of particular practical importance since they suggest that the gains achieved by new or improved cutting stock algorithms are in fact lower than the improvements achieved by utilising the leftover pieces.