Press sheet optimization for open loop control of industrial scale gang-run printing

We consider a problem in the printing industry for gang-run printing of paper products over multiple days. The competitive and high-volume nature of the industry mean that small gains in efficiency translate to significant cost savings and ultimately lower prices. For each day, the problem is to choose which orders to print and the press sheets to print them on that would minimize the total cost of production. We formulate this problem as an integer linear program and find feasible solutions using traditional solvers. This method was compared with optimization by hand in a real factory and significant cost savings were found.