Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2007) 33: 436448

DOI 10.1007/s00170-006-0484-8

ORIGINA L ARTI CLE

Yunqing Rao . Gang Huang . Peigen Li .

Xinyu Shao . Daoyuan Yu

An integrated manufacturing information system for mass

sheet metal cutting
Received: 22 April 2005 / Accepted: 6 October 2005 / Published online: 21 March 2006
# Springer-Verlag London Limited 2006

Abstract In order to reduce manufacturing cost and to

improve the operational efficiency, some factories in the
sheet-metal-related manufacturing industry centralize the
production and management of sheet metal cutting. To
support the centralized mass manufacturing paradigm, this
paper presents an integrated manufacturing information
system to achieve the high utilization of raw sheet material,
lower the manufacturing cost, as well as to improve the
operational efficiency and production management. The
system architecture and some key technologies to implement this system are investigated, based on which, the
whole information system is developed. This system
integrates the functions of sheet metal part modeling and
unfolding, nesting planning, automatic and interactive
nesting, cutting process planning, NC-programming, offline processing simulation and on-line monitoring. The
system has been successfully utilized in industry, and an
example of its application is described in the paper.
Keywords Sheet metal cutting . Integrated
manufacturing . Information system . Nesting

1 Introduction
Sheet metal parts are widely used in the manufacturing
industry (such as the car manufacturing, construction
machinery manufacturing and shipbuilding), where the raw
sheet material accounts for a remarkable proportion of the
total production cost. In some conventional manufacturing
factories, however, sheet metal cutting (including flame,
plasma, laser cutting, etc.) is carried out in a divisional
manner, i.e. each workshop within the factory separately
Y. Rao (*) . G. Huang . P. Li . X. Shao . D. Yu
School of Mechanical Science & Engineering,
Huazhong University of Science & Technology,
1037 Luoyu Avenue, Hongshan District,
Wuhan, 430074, Peoples Republic of China
e-mail: ryq@mail.hust.edu.cn
Tel.: +86-27-87543871
Fax: +86-27-87543074

cuts the sheet metal parts, which results in difficulty with

the total raw sheet material control, optimal utilization and
management. To solve this problem, some factories
centralize the production and management of the mass
sheet metal cutting so as to optimize its utilization and
reduce the manufacturing cost. To support centralized mass
sheet metal cutting, an integrated manufacturing information system, which includes the functions of part designing,
nesting planning, layout generation, cutting process
planning, NC-programming, etc., needs to be developed.
Some related work has been reported on the sheet metal
designing, nesting, manufacturing and management issues.
In the area of CAD/CAM for sheet metal components, the
feature-based method is often applied to the flat pattern
development for sheet metal parts [13]. Wang and Bourbe
[4] also used the features and their constraints to aid
process planning of sheet metal parts. Prasad and Selvaraj
[5] provided the step-by-step illustrations of a practical
method of computer-aided pattern development (CAFPAD) for bend formable sheet metal components (SMC)
manufacture. As a key technique of sheet metal manufacturing, the cutter path planning and NC programming for
sheet metal cutting were also studied and developed [68].
At the University of Twente, in the Netherlands, remarkable work was reported in the field of sheet metal
fabrication and management [911] focusing on sheet
metal bending, including the sheet bending modeling
techniques, the generation of bending sequences, set-up
sequencing, concurrency in designing and process planning, etc. To improve the processing efficiency, cuttingpunching combination machines are used in the sheet metal
industry and some computer-aided manufacturing systems
have been developed for such machines [1214]. For sheet
metal nesting, a great deal of work has been done on this
well-known cutting-and-packing problem, and a lot of
nesting algorithms have been developed [15, 16]. For
practical application in the industry, Guo [17] developed a
set of nesting algorithms taking the requirements of sheet
metal cutting process into account. For large-scale nesting
problems, some nesting planning strategies [1820]
were proposed to reduce the computational complexity

437

and meet the production requirements. Some work

related to the sheet metal manufacturing management
was also reported. For example, Endo et al. [21]
developed a scheduling simulator of virtual manufacturing for sheet metal processing in the small-scale job
shop. Schalla et al. [22] investigated the integration of
CAD/CAM and production control in sheet metal
manufacturing. Cuesta et al. [23] developed a detailed
time-and-cost analysis for sheet-metal cutting processes
in an integrated CAD/CAM system.
However, little work was reported on the integrated
approaches in meeting sheet metal manufacturing issues,
which is crucial for improving the production efficiency
and reducing the manufacturing costs. Xie et al. [12]
proposed an integrated and concurrent approach for the
sheet metal cutting-punching combination processing.
They dealt mainly with the system integration framework
that included a data integration platform based on PRO/
INTRALINK and STEP, and a knowledge-based real-time
CAPP (RTCAPP) system for compound sheet metal
cutting and punching. Xie et al. [3] also proposed a
WWW (World Wide Web)-based integrated product
development platform and information integration framework for the intelligent concurrent design and manufacturing of sheet metal parts.
In this study, an integrated manufacturing information
system for mass sheet metal cutting (including flame,
plasma, laser, etc.) is developed. This system integrates the
functions of sheet metal part modeling and unfolding,

nesting planning, layout generation, cutting process

planning, NC-programming, off-line processing simulation
and on-line monitoring. Several factories in China have
successfully applied this integrated manufacturing information system, which has brought them great benefits in
terms of raw sheet material utilization, manufacturing cost,
operational efficiency and production management.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2
presents the overall structure of the integrated manufacturing information system. Section 3 discusses the nesting
planning for mass sheet metal cutting. Section 4 is devoted
to the CAD/CAPP/CAM sub-systems for sheet metal parts.
Section 5 presents a case study of the system. Finally,
conclusions are drawn in Section 6.

2 The system overall structure

The overall structure and information flows of the
integrated manufacturing information system are depicted
in Fig. 1. The system mainly consists of four parts (subsystems), i.e., the generation of nesting plans (nesting
planning), the sheet metal part modeling and unfolding
(CAD), the automatic and interactive generation of part
layouts (nesting), the cutting process planning (CAPP), the
NC-programming (CAM), as well as the off-line processing simulation and on-line monitoring. These sub-systems
may be physically distributed in the different departments
(e.g. the CAD sub-system is located at the product
MPS

Fig. 1 The overall system

structure and information flows
3DModeling

CAD
systems

Unfolding

DXF

Production planning
system (e.g.MRPII)

DB

DB
Nesting planning

CAD

Stock-sheets

Sheet metal parts

Inter-nesting

Auto-nesting

KB

Cutting
process planning

Residual
sheet forming

CAPP

Simulation/
Monitoring

NC-programming
CAM

Production planning
system (e.g. MRPII)

Residual sheet
Confirmation

Machines on shop floor

438
Fig. 2 The knowledge-based
integrated CAD/CAPP/CAM
sub-systems

Part modeling & unfolding

(CAD)

Bending & Unfolding

Rules

2D-patterns

Process-oriented nesting
Part layout

KB & DB

(CAPP)
Cutting process planning

Nesting Rules
Optimal Nesting
Algorithms
Cutting Sequencing
Algorithm
Cutting Process Rules

Processing layout

Machine Data

Automatic NC-programming
(CAM)

NC codes

development department, the CAM sub-system at the shop

floor, the nesting planning sub-system at the production
planning department, etc.) within the factory and connected
via the intranet.
Nesting planning In order to fulfill the work plans of sheet
metal cutting from the production planning system (e.g.
MRPII), it is necessary to generate the optimal nesting
plans in accordance with the production requirements (e.g.
the priorities of sheet metal parts) and the available stocksheets, whilst considering the raw material utilization and
other operational efficiency (e.g. low cutting set-up
frequency). The nesting planning determines which sheet
metal parts are to be arranged in a stock-sheet without
considering the geometric details for a complete layout.
Sheet metal part modeling and unfolding The featurebased 3D modeling system is responsible for building the
3D entity models of sheet metal parts, which can be
unfolded to form the 2D patterns by the unfolding system.
In addition, some 2D patterns can be obtained by
converting the DXF interface files of 2D part drawings
from other CAD systems (e.g. AutoCAD). All 2D patterns
are stored in the database of sheet metal parts for nesting
and cutting.

Fig. 3 Three levels of the

feature-based part information
model

Nesting and process planning The task of nesting

(including automatic nesting and interactive nesting) is
to determine the geometric arrangement of the sheet metal
parts (i.e. 2D patterns in this paper) in a nesting plan onto a
stock-sheet in such a way as to maximize the utilization
ratio of the material. On the basis of the part optimal
layout, the process planning sub-system is responsible for
the cutting process optimization (e.g. the cutting path
planning) for the parts within the layout. In addition, the
residual part of the stock-sheet being used for the layout
may be re-stored in the stock-sheet database as a residual
sheet for future use. The functions of nesting and
processing planning are integrated and supported by the
knowledge base (KB).
NC-programming The NC-programming sub-system automatically generates the NC codes suitable for the
corresponding cutting machines on the shop floor. Firstly,
according to the processing layout (the layout appended
with the cutting process information), the common cutting
path data are generated; secondly, in accordance with the
NC instruction set of a specific machine, the tool path data
are post-processed to generate the final NC codes suitable
for the machine.

Sheet Metal Part

Management
Features

Shape
Features

Geometry / Topology

Part Level

Material
Features

Feature
Level

Geometric Level

439

Simulation and monitoring The simulation and monitoring

sub-system is the bridge between the integrated manufacturing information system and the physical manufacturing system. According to the generated NC codes, the
sheet metal cutting operations are simulated and reported
prior to the real manufacturing. The simulation result may
return to the CAD/CAPP/CAM sub-systems to improve
the product design and manufacturing process, as well as
returning to the manufacturing system on the shop floor
for manufacturing planning and scheduling. On the other
hand, the real manufacturing status is dynamically
monitored and reported, which may be used for the
production planning system to adjust the work plans.

3 Nesting planning
The work plan for sheet metal cutting from the production
planning system (e.g. MRPII) is a general production plan,
which includes the specifications, quantities and due-dates
of the mass sheet metal parts to be produced (cut). In order
to fulfill the work plan, the nesting plans for the sheet metal
nesting and cutting must be generated. First of all, the sheet
metal parts are classified into different groups according to
their material and thickness. Those parts with an identical
material and an equal thickness, which can be laid out onto
the same kind of stock-sheets, are arranged into a specific
group. For the parts within a group (this part group is still
called a work plan in this paper for description convenience), they may be arranged onto a series of separate
stock-sheets due to the size limitation of one such stocksheet. The process of determining which parts are to be
placed and cut from a single stock-sheet is called nesting
planning. A nesting plan assigns the parts to a stock-sheet,
rather than determining the geometric details of these parts
for a complete layout.
Three objectives are required to be met for a good
nesting plan:

To facilitate the achievement of high raw sheet material

utilization by the forthcoming nesting;
To meet the sheet metal part production priorities based
on their due-dates;
To improve the operational efficiency by decreasing
the cutting set-up frequency.

However, these three objectives usually conflict. To

achieve a trade-off, we present here a parametric multiobjective mathematical programming formulation that
takes account of these factors. The following symbols are
introduced for the problem statement and formulation.
M
Ni
pi
si
m
ni

Number of the total candidate part-types for a nesting

plan
Quantity of the parts of type i in the production order
(i=1, 2, ..., M)
Production priority of the parts of type i
Area of one part of type i
Number of the part-types in the nesting plan
Number of the parts of type i in the nesting plan

bi

A logical variable. bi=1 if ni>0 (i.e. the part type i is

included in the nesting plan); bi=0 if ni=0 (i.e. the part
type i is notP
Mincluded in the nesting plan). It is
obvious that
bi m:

S
R
W1

Area of one stock-sheet used for nesting

Expected ratio of the raw sheet material utilization
The objective weight for the raw sheet material
utilization
The objective weight for the production priority
The objective weight for the operational efficiency

W2
W3

i1

The nesting planning problem is formulated as a

quadratic integer optimization [18]:
 !
M
M
X
X
ni
MAX W1 
si ni W2 
pi ni  W3  VAR
Ni
i1
i1
(1)
8M
P
>
>
< ni si  R  S
s:t:

i1

>
>
: 0  ni  Ni ;

ni are integers

i 1; 2;:::; M :
(2)

 
where VAR
M), and

ni
Ni

n o
represents the variance of

ni
Ni

(i=1,2, ...,

12
0
,
,
2
 


M
M
X ni
X ni C
ni
B
VAR
1 P

 @1 P

M
M
A
Ni
Ni
bi i1
bi i1 Ni
i1

1=m 

i1

M 
X
i1

ni
Ni

2


1=m 

M
X
i1

ni
Ni

!2

(3)

The objective function in Eq. 1 has three components.

The first is driven by the need for maximal raw sheet
material utilization; the second is driven by the requirement
of the production priorities based on the due-dates of the
sheet metal parts; and the third expresses the need for
minimal variance between the part types within the nesting
plan. In other words, the effect of the third component is to
have as many identical nesting stock-sheets (layout) as
possible for the whole work plan. In the case of zero
variance (the ideal situation), one nesting plan (and one
layout) is enough to include all part types and produce the
total quantities of these parts in the work plan by repeating
the same layout certain times, where only one cutting setup is needed to complete the whole work plan, therefore,
the cutting operational efficiency is maximized. A likely
positive variance value, however, implies that more nesting
plans are required for the remaining parts, which are not yet
arranged, to produce the total quantities of the parts in the

440
Fig. 4 The concept of straintransitional-layer for sheet metal
bending

work plan. Therefore, the goal of the third component is to

use the same nesting plan as long as possible, by choosing
the parts for each type in such a quantity that the ratios
between the scheduled number of any type in the nesting
plan and the total number of the type in the work plan are as
close as possible. The relative importance of the three
objectives is determined by the three objective weights W1,
W2 and W3, which reflect the production policy and are set
by the user.
The constraints in Eq. 2 ensure the feasibility of the
solution. The first constraint determines the fraction of
stock-sheet area allowed for use, where the parameter R (in
percentage) is a safety factor that indicates the expected
ratio of raw sheet material utilization in the forthcoming
nesting. The initial value of the parameter R is obtained by
the statistic analysis of the historical nesting data in the
factory. Its final value, however, is achieved by iteration
between the nesting planning and the exact nesting. The
exact nesting for an interim nesting plan may or may not
succeed depending on the parameter R. Once the nesting
fails, R will be reduced by a pre-defined percentage
decrement (e.g. 2%); otherwise, R will be increased by the
same percentage increment. In the former case, the iteration
will end once the nesting succeeds; in the latter case, the
iteration will end once the nesting fails.
The above nesting planning model is essentially
quadratic, which can be divided into a certain number
(NQ) of standard quadratic integer-programming problems
by enumerating the part-type number m (m=1, 2, ..., M).
m
For each m, the problem number is CM
with the

PM
consideration of the logical variable bi
b

m
:
i
i1
1
2
So, the total problem number is NQ CM
CM

M
CM : For each standard quadratic problem, some goal
programming methods (e.g. Powell, Newton) can be
applied to achieve a solution. Maimon [18] also proposed
a Branch and Brand (B&B) method. Here the three special
cases that commonly arise in the production are discussed:

Fig. 5 Examples of auxiliary

paths for contour cutting

Outer
contour

Under Case 1 and Case 2, the model becomes a linear

integer programming problem. For Case 3, we present a
simple heuristic approach below, which will be further
exemplified in Section 5.
Step 1
Sum up the total area (ST) of all parts within the work
plan:
ST

ni si

Step 2
Estimate the number (NS) of the given stock-sheets
(lengthwidth) needed to lay out all the parts: NS
Ceil ST =R  length  width: Ceil(x) denotes the smallest integer greater than x.
Step 3
Calculate the part number (ni) of each type within the
nesting plan: ni FloorNi =NS : Floor(x) denotes the
largest integer less than x.
The final nesting plan is achieved via the iteration
between the nesting planning and the exact nesting by
changing the parameter R according to the method
mentioned before.

S
P

M
X
i1

Outer
contour
S

P: Piercing point

Case 1
The raw material utilization is mainly concerned (W1 >>
W2 and W1 >> W3).
Case 2
The production priority is mainly concerned (W2 >>
W1 and W2 >> W3).
Case 3
The operational efficiency is mainly concerned (W3 >>
W1 and W3 >> W2).

E
P
: Cutting direction

Inner
contour
E

S
P

Inner
contour

S
PS: 'Cut-in' auxiliary path SE: 'Cut-out' auxiliary path

441
Fig. 6 The concept of cutter
diameter compensation
Cutter

Left compensation

Sheet metal part

4 CAD/CAPP/CAM
The CAD/CAPP/CAM sub-systems are responsible for the
information modeling of sheet metal parts, the generation
of part layouts and the cutting process planning, as well as
the automatic generation of NC programs. These subsystems are integrated in terms of data processing and
information sharing, running under the support of the
knowledge base and database (KB & DB). Figure 2 depicts
the configuration and information flows of the CAD/
CAPP/CAM sub-systems.

Right
compensation

from the sheet metal bending is zero. The principles above

are used to simplify the description of the geometric
entities of sheet metal parts in an abstract manner. Based on
these principles, the complex 3D-modeling process is
transformed into some simple 2D-modeling processes
within the relevant planes, without consideration of the
thickness of the sheet metal and the plastic deformation
caused by the bending. Note that these principles are used
only for convenience of the part modeling and designing.
When the final 3D entity model or the 2D unfolding model
is formed, the actual thickness and bend radius will be
considered by the modeling system.

4.1 Part modeling and unfolding

4.1.2 Unfolding of sheet metal parts
4.1.1 Feature-based 3D-modeling of sheet metal parts
The feature-based modeling method is applied to construct
the 3D models of sheet metal parts. The features of a sheet
metal part are classified into three categories: the shape
features, the material features, and the management
features. The shape features describe the geometry and
topology of the shapes that form the geometric model of a
sheet metal part. The material features describe the nature
of the material of a sheet metal part, such as the material
name (code), thickness, processing properties, etc. The
management features describe the information for managing a sheet metal part, such as the part name, drawing
number, batch size of the part, as well as the information
related to the product structure that comprises the sheet
metal product. These three types of features compose the
whole information model of a sheet metal part, which is
built on the three levels of information as described in
Fig. 3. The geometric level is the basis of the part
information model; the feature level is the core and body,
and the part level is composed of the features, the basic
components of a sheet metal part. According to the threelevel information model, the designer models a sheet metal
part on the basis of the features rather than primitive
elements or entities.
It is worth mentioning that the zero thickness and zero
bend radius principles are adopted in the modeling
process. The zero thickness principle assumes that the
thickness of any sheet metal part is zero, whilst the zero
bend radius principle assumes that the bend radius resulted

The 3D entity model of a sheet metal part must be unfolded

so as to form a 2D pattern for cutting. From the point of a
geometric view, the unfolding is a mathematic operation
process. However, some practical process issues (e.g. the
plastic deformation caused by bending) should be
considered in the unfolding.
As described in Section 4.1.1, the zero thickness
principle is adopted to model the sheet metal parts. This
principle is based on the following fact: inside a sheet metal
bend, there exists a middle layer whose length does not
change before and after the bending process. According to
the theory of material plastic deformation, the outer metal
layer is stretched whilst the inner metal layer being shrunk
when a sheet metal is bent. Therefore, from the inner layer
to the outer, there exists a certain transitional layer, from
which the strain status of the sheet metal is changed from
the shrinking to the stretching. This certain middle layer
that keeps its length during the bending process is termed
the strain-transitional-layer, which is illustrated in Fig. 4.
According to the concept of strain-transitional-layer, the
length of an unfolding sheet metal is determined by the
lengths of the strain-transitional-layers inside the sheet
metal. Furthermore, the length of a strain-transitional-layer
is determined by its position along the sheet metal
thickness. To determine the position of a strain-transitional-layer, we introduce the concept of the position coefficient (k), the ratio of the thickness from the inner surface
to the strain-transitional-layer and the thickness of the sheet
metal. The value of k for a sheet metal depends on the

442

following four factors (variables): the material (Mat), the

thickness (H), the bend angle (Ang) and the inner bend
radius (r). Thus, the position coefficient can be expressed
as a four-variable function: k=f (Mat, H, Ang, r). The
position coefficients for different variables are obtained by
experiments and stored as the bending & unfolding knowledge in the KB of the CAD/CAPP/CAM sub-systems.
In Fig. 4, there are two bends in the sheet metal. For the
first bend (the bend angle is Ang1 and the inner bend radius
is r1), the position coefficient k1 is expressed as f (Mat, H,
Ang1, r1), so the unfolding length of this bend is calculated
as follows:
 Ang1
 R1

180
 Ang1
 r1 f Mat; H; Ang1 ; r1  H 

180
 Ang1

 r1 k1  H
180

Lunfold
1

(4)

Similarly, the unfolding length of the second bend is

calculated below:
 Ang2
 R2
180
 Ang2
 r2 f Mat; H; Ang2 ; r2  H 

180
 Ang2

 r2 k2  H
180

Lunfold

(5)

Therefore, the total unfolding length of the sheet metal is

achieved as follows:
Ltotal L1 Lunfold
L2 Lunfold
L3
1
2

(6)

Rule 3
If the outer contours of two parts both include a long
linear edge, then endeavour to place them adjacent so
that the edge is shared. This long linear edge may be
planned as a shared cutting path and cut only once for
the two parts so as to improve the cutting efficiency
and reduce the manufacturing cost.
Rule 4
Endeavour to lay out small parts together (so that
several adjoining parts may be cut together, being
pierced only once).
These nesting rules, however, may reduce the raw sheet
material utilization rate. Therefore, the trade-off between
reducing waste and improving process is evaluated when
generating a layout. Several nesting algorithms [17] for
different scenarios of the sheet metal part portfolio have
been developed in our study, and the rules for selecting
appropriate algorithms are included in the nesting
approach.
Algorithm 1
The nesting algorithm for identical complex shape
parts.
Algorithm 2
The nesting algorithm for rectangular or close to
rectangular shape parts.
Algorithm 3
The nesting algorithm for irregular shape parts.
Algorithm 4
The nesting algorithm in residual stock-sheets (with
irregular borders).
Realizing that it is unlikely to generate a purely
automatic computerized solution, a humanmachine interaction module (interactive nesting) is developed to improve
the automatically generated layouts. The nesting rules also
work when the layouts are improved via the human
machine interaction.

4.2 Nesting and cutting process planning

4.2.1 Nesting

4.2.2 Cutting sequencing

In general, the objective of a nesting algorithm is to

minimize waste. In this study, the process requirements of
sheet metal cutting are considered when a layout is
generated. Accordingly, a rule-based nesting approach is
developed, where some process-oriented nesting rules are
incorporated in the nesting algorithm. Some examples of
the nesting rules are listed below.

For the cutting process planning in a layout, the first and

key problem to be solved is the part cutting sequence,
based on which, the contour cutting sequence in the layout
can be further determined by taking into account the inner
contours, and the whole cutting path can be further
optimized (e.g. the piercing point and cutting direction of
each contour).
The most important objective of the cutting sequencing
is to ensure the parts cutting quality (mainly by mitigating
heat distortion) rather than minimize the total cuttermoving distance, because the benefits of the former
obviously outweigh the loss associated with the latter. A
rational objective, therefore, is to minimize the total cuttermoving distance with the precondition of cutting process
optimization. In this study, a process-oriented cutting
sequencing algorithm based on the rules that ensure the
cutting quality is proposed. This two-step algorithm

Rule 1
If a part is required to be placed along the grain of
metal sheet, then fix the orientation of the part or only
allow it a 180 rotation.
Rule 2
If the shape of a part is long and narrow, then try to
place the part close to the border of the stock-sheet to
mitigate the heat distortion.

443
Fig. 7 The parametric descriptions of line and arc and their
offsets. a Line offset. b Arc
offset

offset

d
(x2, y2)

f(t)

f'(t)

offset

d (x2, y2)

f'(t)

f(t)
da

r
t
a

(x0, y0)

(x1, y1)
(0, 0)

described below also maps out the contour sequence whilst

planning the part sequence. A case of its application is
illustrated in Section 5.
Step1
(1) Select a small part in a corner of the stock-sheet (or
the inner contour area for sequencing its contained
nesting parts) as the first part (P1).
(2) If P1 contains some inner contours, then sequence
these inner contours (described later) and add them
before the P1s outer contour (The underlying rule:
The inner contours of a part must be cut before the
outer contour of the part); otherwise, set the P1s
outer contour as the first contour, and go to Step 2.
(3) If the P1s inner contours contain some nesting
parts, then, according to the order of these inner
contours, sequence the nesting parts of each inner
contour (by calling this sequencing algorithm in a
recursive manner) and add them before the inner
contour (The underlying rule: The nesting parts
must be cut before the part that contains them).
Step 2
(1) If all parts are sequenced, then the algorithm ends;
otherwise select a neighbour of P1 as the next part
(P2). This neighbour is chosen in compliance with
the following rules:

(0, 0)

a Line offset

b Arc offset

cally changed with the part removals, should be

chosen first.
Rule 2
With the precondition of Rule 1, the smaller parts
take precedence over the larger.
Rule 3
With the precondition of Rule 2, the nearest
neighbour principle is adopted.
(2) If the P2s inner contours contain some nesting parts,
then, according to the order of these inner contours,
sequence the nesting parts of each inner contour (by
calling this sequencing algorithm in a recursive
manner) and add them before the inner contour. Let
P1=P2, and go to Step 2.
As for the inner contour sequencing within a part, the
following two rules are applied:
Rule 1
The smaller contours take precedence over the larger.
Rule 2
With the precondition of Rule 1, the nearest neighbour
principle is adopted.
After the contour sequence for all parts is determined,
the next step is to optimize the whole cutting path in
accordance with the process rules, which are described in
the next section.

Rule 1
The part close to the border of the stock-sheet (or
the inner contour area), which may be dynamiTable 1 The part information of a work plan in the case study
No.

Part drawing No.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Z30130101611
Z50G120105103
Z50F120101001A
Z50G120101008
Z50F120402003C
Z30130101614
CG50.12.19
CG50.12.1.61

Specification (mm)
100100
200100
696422
12350
450327
230230
260130
150120

(x1, y1)

Area (mm2)
5.9103
1.27104
2.292105
6.0103
6.09104
2.74104
3.33104
1.41104

Quantity

Priority

400
300
100
200
200
400
200
200

1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

444
Fig. 8 The first layout to be
repeated 33 times

4.2.3 Cutting path optimization

On the basis of the part/contour cutting sequence, the
whole cutting path can be further planned within a layout.
First, the piercing point, auxiliary cutting path and cutting
direction of each contour are planned; then, the cutting
paths among several contours may be also optimized.
A rule-based cutting path planning approach is developed in this study. Some examples of the process rules are
described below.
Rule 1
The piercing point of a contour should be set in a waste
area, and a cut-in and a cut-out auxiliary path
should be appended to the cutting path of the contour.

To ensure cutting quality, the cutting process of a

contour usually begins and ends from a waste area
nearby rather than from the contour itself. Starting
from the piercing point, the cutting path leading to

Fig. 9 The second layout with

processing information

the contour is termed the cut-in auxiliary path.

After the pure contour cutting, the cutting path
leaving from the contour is termed the cut-out
auxiliary path. The setting of the auxiliary paths of a
contour, including their types (line or arc), positions
and lengths, depends on the nature of the contour,
the starting point, the surrounding area, as well as
the material and thickness of the stock-sheet. In the
KB of the system, there are a series of rules to
ensure that the auxiliary paths of a contour are
appended correctly. Figure 5 illustrates some
examples of auxiliary paths.
Rule 2
The cutting direction of a contour depends on the
dynamic border of the stock-sheet so as to mitigate the
heat distortion as far as possible.
Rule 3
If several small parts are laid out together, then try to
cut them in continuity, being pierced only once.

445
Fig. 10 The automatic generation of NC codes

Rule 4
If two outer contours share a long linear edge, then the
edge is planned as a shared cutting path to be cut only
once for both contours.

4.3 NC-programming
The NC-programming sub-system is responsible for automatically generating the NC codes suitable for the working of the cutting machines. According to the processing
layout from the CAPP sub-system, the geometry of each
part (contour) in the layout is determined, and the cutting
information (such as the piercing point, cutting direction
and cutting path) of each part (contour) is also determined.
The NC-programming process for a layout includes two
steps. Firstly, the common tool path data of all parts
(contours) are generated according to the processing
layout. Secondly, the common tool path data are postprocessed in accordance with the NC instruction sets of the
cutting machines to generate the final NC codes able to
carry out the CNC working.
Due to the significant spot size of a cutting tool (i.e. the
flame/plasma/laser cutting torch in this study), the cutterdiameter (i.e. the spot size of the torch) compensation
needs to be taken into account in the cutting path planning
so as to ensure the dimension precision of the sheet metal
parts. There are two different approaches to compensate the
cutter diameter. One approach is to automatically implement the compensation by the control system of the CNC
machine via the relevant preparatory NC codes in the
second step of NC-programming; the other approach is to
appropriately offset the contours of the sheet metal parts
prior to the generation of common tool path data in the first
step of NC-programming. We term the former hardcompensation whilst the latter soft-compensation.

(1)Hard-compensation
Hard-compensation allows the cutters of various diameters to be used with a common datum, without having to
alter the NC program. The cutter can be assumed to travel
round the profile being cut and allowance for the actual
diameter of the cutter is automatically made by the
controller of the CNC machine. The cutter-diameter
compensation for the CNC cutting machines is controlled
by the following preparatory codes:

G41-Left compensation (cutter to the left of the profile

of the workpiece)
G42-Right compensation (cutter to the right of the
profile of the workpiece)
G40-Compensation cancelled

Figure 6 illustrates the concept of cutter diameter hardcompensation. The inner contour is left compensated
whilst the outer contour is right compensated. For the
inner contour, starting at any point and face in the direction
of the cutter travel by following the arrows, it can be seen
that the path of the cutter is always to the left of the surface
being machined. Similarly, for the outer contour, the path
of the cutter is always to the right of the surface being
machined.
Whether left or right compensation should be applied to
a contour depends on the type (Outer - outer contour or
Inner - inner contour) and the direction (CW - clockwise or
CCW - counter clockwise) of the contour. For example, if a
contour is Outer and CCW (as in Fig. 6), then it is right
compensated. A unified criterion is presented here to
determine whether left or right compensation should be
adopted:
Sign bCT  bCD

(7)

446

where:

bCTan integer variable representing contour type.

bCT=1 if the contour is Outer; bCT=1 if the contour is
Inner.
bCDan integer variable representing contour direction.
bCD=1 if the direction is CW; bCD=1 if the direction is
CCW.
If Sign=1, then left compensation; if Sign=1, then
right compensation.

The nature of any contour of a sheet metal part can be

determined as follows: the contour is Outer if its area (S) is
the maximal among all contours of the part; otherwise the
contour is Inner. The direction of the contour is CW if A>0;
otherwise the direction of the contour is CCW. S and A are
calculated by Eq. 8:
n1
X
1
S j Aj and A
xi  yi1  xi1  yi
2
i1

(8)

where n is the vertex number of the discrete contour

polygon, (xi, yi) are the coordinates of vertex i (x0=xn+1=x1,
y0=yn+1=y1), S is the area of the discrete contour polygon.
(2)Soft-compensation
Some cutting machines may not provide the facilities for
hard-compensation, in which case, soft-compensation is
necessary. For sheet metal cutting, soft-compensation is
carried out after the nesting and before the cutting process
planning. Obviously, soft-compensation facilitates the
cutting process planning because the cutter diameter need
not be considered thereafter. Therefore, soft- rather than
hard-compensation is adopted in our study.
As described before, soft-compensation for a contour
is achieved by offsetting the contour (the offset distance is
equal to the radius of the cutter). Because a part contour is
composed of some lines/arcs (any other curve can be fitted
by lines or arcs) or one circle, the offset of a contour is
transformed into the offsets of such elements as line/arc or
circle. Since the offset of a circle can be easily obtained by
either increasing (when the circle is an outer contour) or
decreasing (when the circle is an inner contour) its radius
by the offset distance, only the offsets of lines and arcs are
discussed.
a. Offset of line
Referring to Fig. 7a, the parametric equations of an
original line and its offset line are described as Eqs. 9
and 10, respectively.
f t xt; yt t cos a x1 ; t sin a y1
f 0 t f t  d sin a; cos a

(9)

where (x1, y1) is the start point of the original line, (x2,
y2) is the end point, a is the angle between the line and
the +x axis (0a2), d is the offset distance, t is the
variable (0tlength of the line). In Eq. 10, the sign of
d is obtained by: Sign(d)=bCTbCD, where the meanings of bCT and bCD are the same as in Eq. 7.
b. Offset of arc
Referring to Fig. 7b, the parametric equations of an
original arc and its offset arc are described as Eqs. 11
and 12, respectively.
f t xt; yt r cos t x0 ; r sin t y0

(11)

f 0 t f t  dcos t; sin t

(12)

where (x0, y0) is the central point of the original arc, (x1,
y1) is the start point, (x2, y2) is the end point, a is the
start angle (the included angle between the connection
line from the central point to the start point and the +x
axis, 0 a 2), da is the central angle (0 < da <2), r
is the radius, d is the offset distance, t is the variable
(a t a+da).
To obtain the correct offset of an arc in a contour, the
sign of d in Eq. 12 is the key point. Assume bAD is an
integer variable to represent the direction of the arc
along the direction of the contour (bAD=1 if the arcs
direction is CW; bAD=1 if CCW), the sign of d can be
obtained by the following unified criterion: Sign(d)=
bCT bCD bAD, where the meanings of bCT and bCD
are the same as in Eq. 7.
After all elements of a contour are offset, the intersection points between two adjoining elements of the
contour are calculated so as to obtain the whole offset
contour as the compensated tool path.

5 Case study
The presented information system has been successfully
applied in several sheet-metal-related manufacturing factories in China. In this section, an example of the
application in such a factory is presented, where four
CNC flame-cutting machines are used to cut the mass sheet
metal parts for several types of construction machinery in a
centralized way. Table 1 lists the sheet metal parts within
one specific group (material=Q235, thickness=10 mm) of a
work plan generated by the production planning system
(MRPII). The 2D pattern models of these parts have been
established and stored in the database. Refer to Fig. 8 for
the shape of each part type. For simplicity, the part group
here is still described as a work plan.
(1) Nesting planning

(10)

In this case study, the operational efficiency is

mainly concerned in the nesting planning. The
specification of available stock-sheets is

447

2,0001,250 mm. The parameter R (expected ration

of raw sheet material utilization) is set 0.8.
According to the heuristic approach proposed in
Section 3, the estimated stock-sheet number for the
work plan is 31, and the nesting plan (the part
number of each type to be arranged within a single
layout) is achieved as follows: n1=12, n2=9, n3=3,
n4=6, n5=6, n6=12, n7=6, n8=6. In this case, ni/
Ni=3/100 and VAR(ni/Ni)=0 (i=1,2,...,8).
(2) Exact nesting

In fact, the nesting planning and exact nesting are

conducted in an integrated and iterative manner.
The final nesting plan is obtained while the best
feasible nesting is achieved. For this case study, the
exact layout corresponding to the final nesting plan
(the first layout) is depicted in Fig. 8 (the applied
optimal nesting algorithm is the Algorithm 3; the
interval between two adjacent parts is set 10 mm;
the material utilization ratio is 75.5%). According to
the first layout, the exact number of the given-sized
stock-sheets required for the work plan is calculated
to be 33, and an extra one is needed for the rest of
the parts (n1=4, n2=3, n3=1, n4=2, n5=2, n6=4, n7=2,
n8=2) that are excluded in the 33 repeated sheets.
The exact layout for the remaining parts (the second
layout) is depicted in Fig. 9.

piercing is set 10 s. The moving speed of the cutter

is set at 5,000 mm/min. The expected processing
time is 103.07 min for the first layout and 34.27 min
for the second layout.

6 Conclusions
To support the centralized mass sheet metal cutting
paradigm, an integrated manufacturing information
system, which includes the functions of sheet metal part
modeling and unfolding, nesting planning, automatic and
interactive nesting, cutting process planning, NC-programming, off-line processing simulation and on-line monitoring, is presented in this paper. With the contribution to
some key technologies for its implementation, the whole
information system has been developed in Microsoft Visual
C++ 6.0, and successfully applied in several sheet-metalrelated manufacturing factories in China. Its applications,
one of which is exemplified in the paper, have brought
great benefits to the factories in terms of raw sheet material
utilization, manufacturing cost, operational efficiency and
production management.
Acknowledgement We would like to acknowledge the support of
the National Basic Research Program of China under grant number
2005CB724100.

(3) Process planning

The second layout is taken as an example to

demonstrate the cutting process planning. First of
all, each contour in the layout is offset by 1.0 mm
(the cutters radius) for the cutter diameter softcompensation. After that, by applying the cutting
sequencing algorithm in the KB, the contour cutting
sequence is planned as described in Fig. 9. On the
basis of the cutting sequence, the piercing point,
auxiliary paths and cutting direction of each contour
are optimized in compliance with the process rules
in the KB. In Fig. 9, the numbers in order indicate
the contour cutting sequence, and the symbol +
or following a sequence number denotes the
cutting direction of the corresponding contour: +
for clockwise and for counter clockwise. Note
that the contour 12+ and the contour 13+ are cut
together, being pierced only once. Finally, the residual part of the stock-sheet is recorded and re-stored
as a residual sheet in the database of stock-sheets.

(4) NC-programming

After the cutting process planning, the part layouts

with the processing information are ready for the
NC-programming. The automatic generation of NC
codes and processing simulation for the cutting
machines are shown in Fig. 10. According to the
relevant knowledge in the KB, the cutting speed is
set at 500 mm/min, and the processing time for a

References
1. Allada V, Ananed S (1995) Feature-based modeling approaches
for integrated manufacturing: state-of-the-art survey and future
research directions. Int J Comput Integr Manuf 8:411440
2. See Toh KH, Loh HT, Nee AYC, Lee KS (1995) A featurebased flat pattern development system for sheet metal parts.
J Mater Process Technol 48:8995
3. Xie SQ, Tu PL, Aitchison D, Dunlop R (2001) A WWW-based
integrated product development platform for sheet metal parts
intelligent concurrent design and manufacturing. Int J Prod Res
39(17):38293852
4. Wang CH, Bourbe DA (1995) Using features and their
constraints to aid process planning of sheet metal parts.
Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics
and Automation, pp 10201026
5. Prasad KSRK, Selvaraj P (2004) Practical methods of
computer-aided flat pattern development for sheet metal
components. Int J Prod Res 42(15):30113039
6. Raggenbass A, Reissner J (1991) Automatic generation of NC
production plans in stamping and laser cutting. CIRP Ann
40:247250
7. Jackson SD, Mittal RO (1993) Automatic generation of 2-axis
laser-cutter NC machine program and path planning from CAD.
Comput Ind 21:223231
8. Han G, Na S (1999) A study on torch path planning in laser
cutting processes - part 2: cutting path optimization using
simulated annealing. J Manuf Process 1(1):6270
9. De Vin LJ, de Vries J, Streppel AH, Kals HJJ (1996)
Concurrency in design and process planning for small batch
production of sheet metal parts. Int J Eng Appl 1:1826
10. Ong SK, De Vin LJ, Nee AYC, Kals HJJ (1997) Fuzzy set
theory applied to set-up sequencing for sheet bending. J Mater
Process Technol 69(13):2936

448
11. Lutters D, Brinke E, Streppel AH, Kals HJJ (2000) Computeraided process planning for sheet metal based on information
management. J Mater Process Technol 103(1):120127
12. Xie SQ, Tu YL, Liu JQ, Zhou ZD (2001) Integrated and
concurrent approach for compound sheet metal cutting and
punching. Int J Prod Res 39(6):10951112
13. Rao YQ, Efstathiou J An integrated knowledge-based system
for sheet metal processing. Proceedings of the 1st Virtual
Conference on Intelligent Production Machines and Systems
(IPROMS2005)
14. Wang GG, Xie SQ (2005) Optimal processing planning for a
combined punch-and-laser cutting machine using ant colony
optimization. Int J Prod Res 43(11):21952216
15. Dyckhoff H (1990) A typology of cutting and packing
problems. Eur J Oper Res 44:45159
16. Dowsland KA, Dowsland WB (1995) Solution approaches to
irregular nesting problems. Eur J Oper Res 84:506521
17. Guo J (2000) Sheet metal nesting algorithms considering the
cutting process. Master Thesis, Huazhong University of
Science and Technology (in Chinese)

18. Maimon O (1995) Nesting planning based on production

priorities and technological efficiency. Eur J Oper Res
80:121129
19. Niemi E (2003) Nesting strategy for standard parts under
variable demand. Proc Inst Mech Eng, BJ Eng Manuf 217
(10):14211428
20. Niemi E (2003) Part allocation to nesting layouts under variable
demand. Int J Prod Res 41(7):15491563
21. Endo J, Ohba S, Anzai T (1996) Virtual manufacturing for
sheet metal processing. J Mater Process Technol 60:191196
22. Schalla AJ, Knackfub PC, Hirsch BE (1991) Integration of
CAD/CAM and production control in sheet metal manufacturing - an application area of operations research. Prod Plan
Control 2(2):96101
23. Cuesta E, Rico JC, Mateos S, Suarez CM (1998) Times and
costs analysis for sheet-metal cutting processes in an integrated
CAD/CAM system. Int J Prod Res 36(6):17331747