Simulated Annealing Algorithm and Implementation Software for Fabric Cutting Problem

Abstract

The development of loom technology has significantly increased the efficiency of fabric output in the textile industry. Additionally, preventing the occurrence of defects during the manufacturing process on the fabric is not easy. Therefore, after the production is completed, the aim is deciding the cutting location of the product, which has the defect map, to increase the first quality product quantity by considering the customer quality parameters. In this article, a decision support system has been developed to help the inspector in the final stage which will also prevent losses. The utilized algorithm is the Simulated Annealing algorithm, which is well known and rendered good results for different types of problems in the literature. In the study, a sample problem is used to explain the adaptation of the algorithm to the problem, and the design of the experiments is deployed to obtain the best parameter values for the algorithm. Finally, the software, which is prepared to use the algorithm in the real production environment, is introduced and the results of the performance analysis are evaluated. The results demonstrated that the developed software is capable of making high ratio first quality fabric decisions within seconds.