The Computer Integrated Manufacturing Laboratory is a constituent laboratory of the Institute for Systems Research at the University of Maryland.
This research was supported by Northrop Grumman Electronic Sensors and Systems Division.
Degree and year: Master of Science, 1998
Thesis directed by: Dr. Jeffrey W. Herrmann Department of Mechanical Engineering and Institute of Systems Research
ABSTRACT
The concern of modern manufacturing has always been the minimization of costs and increase of production efficiency. A great deal of research has been performed for all aspects of problems towards these ends. Sheet metal manufacturing is one activity that may benefit from additional investigation, particularly with regards to capacity and cost issues.
Nesting sheet metal parts increases material utilization and punch press throughput, and decreases costs by reducing setup time and total material requirements for a given set of orders. This thesis examines the changes to traditional capacity analysis introduced by the regular use of part nesting as a weekly pre-production operation. New formulas are presented for capacity and material requirements. The problem is formulated for nesting a given group of orders in order to minimize associated costs. An integer programming model is developed to solve the optimization problem, and an application is developed using industry data. Results indicate accurate calculations for capacity and material use, and optimizing the nests further reduces costs.
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