EURO 2025 Leeds
Abstract Submission

1280. Optimized Reel Utilization in Make-to-Order Production by 3D Printing

Invited abstract in session MA-21: Packing with practical constraints, stream Cutting and packing (ESICUP).

Monday, 8:30-10:00
Room: Esther Simpson 2.12

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Ilayda Celenk
Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology
2. Willem van Jaarsveld
Eindhoven University of Technology

Abstract

We study a variant of bin packing problem that arises in 3D printing. In particular, this study focuses on 3D printing in a make-to-order production system, where a limited number of slots for fixed-weight pieces of stock materials, called reels, are considered to manufacture components with 3D printers. We assign components to reels for production as the component requests arrive one by one. The aim is to determine an assignment policy that minimizes the average loss on reels in terms of weight, which occurs when the remaining weight on a reel is too low to produce a component and has to be discarded. Due to the online nature of the problem, we formulate it as a Markov Decision Process. We propose an index policy based on analytical insights into the problem. Moreover, we propose to use that index policy as a starting point for applying deep reinforcement learning to the problem, and find that this yields policies that have close-to-optimal loss.

Keywords

Status: accepted


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