Patent ID: 8798779

Claim:
A computer-based method of combining customer order information with information about available resources and about product design to produce an efficient production plan for manufacturing substantially two-dimensional elements, the method comprising the following steps: maintaining manufacturing data in a memory, the data including job data, product design data, resource data, and rule and objective data; computing, based on the product design data, the resource data, and the rule and objective data, production orders for substantially two-dimensional elements for selected jobs associated with the job data, whereby a production order specifies for at least one given job one or more nests and resources to cut the one or more nests; computing, based on the product design data, the resource data, and the rule and objective data, a production plan for the production orders, whereby the production plan schedules execution of the production orders; determining, based on the resource data, whether the production plan requires more resources than are available; and modifying the rule and objective data maintained in the memory and repeating the maintaining, computing production orders, computing production plan, and determining steps, if more resources than available are determined to be required; wherein: (1) the product design data include at least one of: a. a listing of parts that compose a product, b. geometric definitions of each of the parts, c. manufacturing restrictions for a product and/or a specific part that makes the product, and d. material requirements; (2) the resource data include descriptions of inventory of raw material and/or machines available for cutting the nests of the elements; and (3) the rule and objective data specify manufacturing constraints.