Solving real problem in plastic industry: A case in trim-loss problems

In this paper we present a cutting plane model for solving a problem in a cast polypropylene (CPP) plastic film manufacturer. The company produces plastic rolls from plastic pellets with widths ranging from 3050 mm to 3250 mm. The plastic rolls are trimmed according to customer’s orders. Before this work has been done, the PPIC department’s scheduled the machines and arranged the plastic trim compositions manually. In this work we solve the plastic trimming problem by applying the trim loss model. We used the visual basic for application (VBA) based program to Excel. We then use the model outcomes for optimizing the machine scheduling process. We proposed modified earliest due date for scheduling the machine that represents the realities in the company