Released on: September 8, 2008, 6:34 am

Press Release Author: Thomas R. Cutler

Industry: Software

Press Release Summary: Optimation Nesting Leader Profiled in The Machinist Magazine

Press Release Body: In the current issue of The Machinist magazine, manufacturing
journalist TR Cutler addressed, “Industrial automation: Clearly seeing part
nesting.” Nesting is a big industrial automation challenge and according to Michael
D Lundy PE and President of Blue Springs, Missouri-based Optimation
(www.optimation.com), “Nesting parts together to make an efficient nest is a very
complex problem. For just fifty parts, there are over 10100 alternative ways to nest
the parts. If a company adds rotation, the number gets much larger. 10100 is a
number so large that a super computer could build one million nests per second…it
would take over 1084 lifetimes to build all possible nests. One cannot brute force
this large challenge.” To solve such large challenges, a mathematical technique
called ‘fathoming’ is required. It is a method used to eliminate most of the
alternative nests and focus only on the potential optimal nests. Most nests can be
eliminated without ever being considered (placing the luggage in the driver’s seat
stops the road trip; such a packaging consideration is not needed.)

The optimal solution that satisfies all the real world manufacturing conditions is
quite small. Fathoming ensures that only nests that are in the optimal set are
evaluated. Lundy explains, “We call this Multi-Dimensional Combinatorial Nesting or
MDCN for short. All other companies use heuristics that are often suboptimal and
many not even find feasible solutions.” As the graphic indicates, there are a lot of
solutions that will satisfy material efficiency but destroy a manufacturer’s
schedule and machine efficiency. Standard heuristics crash badly when presented
with real world problems. MDCN looks at many different dimensions affecting cost.
Schedule, hot parts, material efficiency, order completion, tool optimization,
common cutting, torch load and other costs make finding the optimal nest
Multi-Dimensional.

For 30 years Optimation® has been the world leader in Part Nesting for Optimized
Material and Labor utilization. Consistently providing product advancement
leadership to industry, the company’s new Nesting Technology, AxiomVE make previous
nesting methods obsolete. The new technology, Vision Emulation™, allows the system
to “see” the shape of parts, just as human eyes would view them. When a person
looks at a part, they see the whole shape and any special features on the part.
This information is then used to determine if the part will fit in an area of the
nest. Vision Emulation eliminates excessive trial and error as well as excessive
rotation.
Optimation (www.optimation.com) offers benchmarking against any other method of part
nesting; recent benchmarks have show improvements up to 15% in material efficiency
alone. As lean efficiencies are essential, the most advanced nesting technology
guarantees the most important parts are always nested in the next available machine,
providing advanced information to integrated costing, labor reporting, and material
inventory systems. Because Optimation is strong financially and has the most
advanced technology; the company offers direct financing from its own capital
resources.

Optimation
www.optimation.com
Michael D Lundy P.E.
Opti1@optinest.com
877-827-2100


Web Site: http://www.optimation.com

Contact Details: Optimation
704 NW Mock Street
Blue Springs, MO 64015
816-228-2100