A Branch-and-Cut-and-Price Algorithm for Cutting Stock and Related Problems

We present a branch-and-cut-and-price framework to solve Cutting Stock Problems with strong relaxations using Set Covering (Partition) Formulations, which are solved by column generation. We propose an extended Ryan-Foster branching scheme for non-binary models, a pricing algorithm that converges in a few iterations, and a variable selection algorithm based on branching history. These strategies are combined with subset-row cuts and custom primal heuristics to create a framework that overcomes the current state-of-the-art for the following problems: Cutting Stock, Skiving Stock, Ordered Open-End Bin Packing, Class-Constrained Bin Packing, and Identical Parallel Machines Scheduling with Minimum Makespan. Additionally, a new challenging benchmark for Cutting Stock is introduced.