07 / MANUFACTURING / PAPER & PACKAGING

A mathematical cutting engine that groups a paper mill's daily orders into combinations that waste far less paper.

Client: Gujarat-based paper manufacturer

Tags: Manufacturing · Paper & Packaging · Linear Programming · Cutting Optimization · Dashboard

// Problem

A kraft paper manufacturer running roughly 250 tons of paper a day was cutting bulk jumbo rolls into the many smaller roll sizes clients actually order — sorted by color, thickness, sizing, price, and minimum order quantity. Planning those cuts by hand left an average of 5% of every roll as trim waste, and at close to $1,000 a roll, that waste was costing the business real money every single day.

// Our Solution

Every morning's orders are automatically grouped by what's available and what clients actually asked for, then matched into cutting combinations that pair similar and complementary orders together instead of cutting each one in isolation. The result: average trim loss came down from around 5% to somewhere between 1.5% and 2%, on a business cutting hundreds of tons of paper a day.

// Technical Details

Cutting Optimization Engine

A linear-programming model takes the day's incoming orders — grouped by color, thickness, sizing, price band, and minimum order quantity — and searches for combinations of orders that can be cut from the same jumbo rolls with the least leftover trim, pairing similar and complementary orders together rather than cutting each order as a one-off.

Daily Planning Dashboard

A dashboard surfaces each day's grouped cutting plan for the floor team, replacing manual, experience-based grouping with a plan generated fresh every morning from that day's actual order book and available stock.

Stack

Python for the optimization engine, Node.js for the application layer.