Defining cutting patterns to cut rectangular plates to produce smaller rectangular pieces with specified sizes and demands is an every day task in the furniture industry. Besides the usual interest in cutting patterns that minimizes waste, there is also interest in developing cutting patterns that allows a rapid manipulation of the plates. In this work we analyze the cutting patterns used in a furniture industry situated at the state of São Paulo-Brazil and present a heuristic procedure to generate cutting patterns based on n-group guillotine pattern. We compare the heuristic solution with the solution given by the traditional 2-stage Gilmore-Gomory method and the industry practice. The results indicate that the proposed heuristic can generate cutting patterns similar to the ones used in the industry with waste index that are equal or better.
two-dimensional cutting stock; n-group cutting pattern; heuristic; furniture industry
