A material allocation scheme for optical fibre cable manufacturing: a case study

Abstract

Optical fibre cable manufacturing is a multistep process that combines individual fibres into colour-coded buffer tubes. These tubes are grouped together to make cables in which individual fibres are protected from external loads and environmental factors. This assembly process has a tree structure in which components are progressively combined into a finished cable. The main component, optical fibre, is held in inventory on spools in varying lengths and in both pre-coloured and natural states. Orders are received for lengths of finished cable. Since the glass fibre is the highest cost component of the cable, the allocation of fibre inventory to orders should be accomplished so that fibre scrap is minimized. In this paper a heuristic procedure for minimizing glass fibre scrap is presented. Computational results are given.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by the Office of Naval Research and by Corning Cable Systems, Inc., Winston Salem, NC.