The company BIGImpact in Eindhoven prints around one million square meters a year, in particular all kinds of posters.

A recent successful master project was on how to put the posters on the material efficiently; the tool developed by the 
master student is now in use, saving a lot of material.

Posters are not only printed, they also have to be cut out of the material. This is done automatically, but the order 
in which the material is cut along the cutting lines is far from optimal. Optimizing this process is expected to speed 
up the process of cutting. Although this will not save material, it will save time to use the cutting machine, and may 
avoid the need for buying more cutting machines.

Investigating the problem, and investigating whether SMT solving and/or optimization techniques serve for this 
optimization problem is suitable for a master project.

Contact: Hans Zantema, h.zantema@tue.nl