Slab matching problem: a tabu search approach

This paper discusses matching orders against slabs problem which arises in integrated steel industry. The number of surplus slabs increases responding to varying customer needs for product customization and quantities. To deal with the surplus slabs, it is important to optimize the matching orders against slabs from an optimization perspective. It can be modeled as a partitioning problem with multiple objectives and constraints. In this paper we formulate this problem as a cost-minimizing integer mathematical programming. A heuristic method based on tabu search is proposed. The method combines the swap, insertion and cyclic transfers neighborhoods to determine good approximate solutions. Computational results on production data from an iron and steel factory are presented and analyzed. Comparison with actual slab matching indicates that the proposed method could produce significantly better matching