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A GreyconMill Special
Citation preview
GreyconMill 30 Released
Customer Projects First
Up to version 26
customer projects were the
main driver of the
GreyconMill development
effort This had two natural
consequences
Each customer using a
different version
A series of customer-
specific features which
did not look into general
benefit for other
customers
Upgrades Next
In versions 27 28 and 29
our main focus was on
three aspects
Zero bugs - As per
Greyconrsquos standards
always releasing with a
target of less than 20
unresolved bugs
General usability -
Gradually making the
key screens more
and more user
friendly and also
configurable to suit
the widest range of
customer-specific
needs
Upgrades -
improving our
upgrade process and
tools so that existing
installations get the
benefit of all the features
and bug fixes we have
added since
The 30 Milestone
This GM30 release marks
the end of that phase and
the start of a new one
where we are going to
review the deepest aspects
of the GreyconMill
architecture aiming to
solve the most difficult
problems it currently has
Some achievements
between 26 and 30
Upgrades - 40 of our
existing installations are
using the 29 release
Zero bugs - A new record
of only two unresolved
defects by the 30 release
4times (302 increase) in the
number of our manual
GREYCON
September 2015
miniGreyLetter
Inside this issue
GreyconMill Diagnostics 2
GreyconMill Label
Printing
2
GreyconMill Performance
Improvements in 30
3
GreyconMill Production
History
3
GreyconMill Import only
New Settings
3
GreyconMill Notes and
Configurable Registration
4
GreyconMill Track Item
Usability and Quality
Report
4
opt-Studio Performance
Evolution
5
X-TrimmdashScore
Separation
5
regression tests covering
80 of the customer use
cases
42 increase of our
automated regression
tests which run every
night with wide
coverage
19 increase in number
of unit tests executed
before every commit
Highlights in GM30
New standard and user-
extensible diagnostics
Better production history
chart with zoom
Configurable registration
Speed the 30 release is a
lot faster than the 29
release The performance
index on identical
hardware and data
improved from 15 to 25
Known issues at release
The previous
issue of the
newsletter can
be found online
here
Page 2 miniGreyLetter
GreyconMill Diagnostics
The question of
automated diagnostics for
a system designed for 7 times
24 operation is of
paramount importance
The 30 release of
GreyconMill implements a
user-extensible system of
diagnostics borrowing the
concepts already in use in
our separate Heartbeat
Monitor (HBM) If you are
not aware of this HBM
runs as a separate process
(ideally on separate
hardware) and
periodically conducts
database sanity checks
(for example whether an
incoming message failed)
When HBM detects an
abnormal situation it
issues an alert by email
with the relevant details
In this release
GreyconMill introduces a
standard set of such sanity
checks the screen for this
is shown below The
bottom section of the
screen shows an entry for
each of the checks that
returned any result when
executed together with
the number of results it
would detect
If you need to add your
own custom checks it is
very easy to do so You
can create a database view
and then define the
scenarios around that
view The process literally
takes a few minutes
Windows 10
Windows 10 is now
officially released and
Greycon is proud to
confirm that all
Greycon software is
compatible with it
New Projects
Since the previous
newsletter Greycon is
happy to announce
new projects with
Ilim of Russia at the
Koryazhma mill
Amcor Flexibles for
the plant of
Venturina in Italy
Jian Paper Anhui
Shanying Paper of
China with 9 Paper
Machines in scope
In a separate
development our
software is currently
on trial at a tissue mill
Up till now tissue
mills have not been a
fertile market for our
systems due to the
reduced product
complexity in tissue
GreyconMill Label Printing
Historically the
information that
GreyconMill could
include in the printed
item labels was hardndash
coded
Hence every time a
customer needed a new
field we had to develop a
new feature to add it
We reduced that problem
when we made all user-
defined item (and order)
properties accessible to
the printing functionality
However that did not
cover all possible
scenarios and still
required code changes
case by case
In 30 we introduced a
customisable database
function for defining
which item-related values
will be printed This
includes values calculated
through complex
formulas or through
linking the item with any
related table
September 2015 Page 3
GreyconMill Performance Improvement in 30
For this release we
investigated the impact of
the size of the database in
the performance The
original intention was to
extend and improve the
purge functionality That
investigation spotted a
few places where the
sensitivity to database
size could be improved
upon Quite surprisingly
once we addressed those
the correlation between
the database size and the
observed performance
was eliminated
Since the introduction of
the performance index in
27 which allows for
consistent measurements
of five common
GreyconMill tasks
Greyconrsquos Quality
Assurance department
(QA) has been
monitoring each release
We also used this index
to measure the impact of
the code improvements
on a copy of Elocoatrsquos
production database
(with over 30000 orders
and 1000000 items)
Running on consistent
hardware the
performance index
showed a remarkable
improvement from 15 to
25 For example finding
items in the inventory
screen by creation
machine went down from
46 to 09 seconds
Improved messages
traceability
In the 86 Greycon Suite
release we will deliver a
new function that allows
the user to open an opt-
Studio entity (order task
stock item etc) and
ldquoTrace messagesrdquo This
will bring a list of all the
Integration Manager
messages that modified
(directly or indirectly)
that entity This
enhancement will speed-
up the analysis of issues
that occur in the
interface of opt-Studio
and other systems
GreyconMill 30 is
already including more
details in the messages it
writes for Integration
Manager to read
The production
history has a more
modern chart with
zoom capability
allowing an overview
and a closer look at
the same time to spot
instantly deviations
from normal
production
GreyconMill Production HistorymdashNew Chart with Zoom
GreyconMill Import only New Settings
The options to import user
settings include now the
ability to import only the
new settings defined in the
settings file while keeping
the existing ones This is
very useful when a
customer starts using a
new screen allowing him
to define his custom layout
for that screen and add it
automatically to all his
users
Page 4 miniGreyLetter
Track Item amp Quality
The quality report of an
item and its genealogy
or production tracking
are two fundamental
features in GreyconMill
In 30 we have
combined them in the
Track item screen
which we also fine-
tuned by
Making the details
section configurable
and allowing to hide
it entirely in one click
Polishing the
drawing of the
tracking graph for
both the horizontal
and vertical displays
Making the quality
report available on
any item one right-
click away
The primary machine and
winder registration
screens are now
configurable they also
include a multi-line notes
field
GreyconMill Notes and Configurable Registration
The notes at the winder
can then inherit from the
corresponding notes of
the input item(s) and even
save different notes for
each production lane The
system can also append
general notes to many
lanes at the same time
even if those lanes have
different notes each
GreyconMill Track Item Usability and Quality Report
You can now come by riverboat
to our office in London
September 2015 Page 5
opt-Studio Performance Evolution
GM Release 30
The 30 Release Notes
can be found in the wiki
(registration required)
Comment on the Score
Separation Algorithm by
Mr B Schelling
ldquoThe paper shows very
clearly that trim-
optimization is a truly
difficult matter that is
underestimated by 99 of
the employees in the
industry and probably by
150 of our customers
Instead of complaining
about it they should be
thankful that in our
industry we optimize and
achieve economic and
ecological benefits for
them Just imagine how
expensive corrugated
board would be if there
was no trim-optimization
So what do we do about it
We rather buy different
paper widths run a lot of
side trim Doing so we
lose a lot of productivity
and as a result packaging
prices must go up Vicious
cycle
But we should optimize
the sheet sizes so that
they fit on the corrugator
This has to be done in
sample department where
not only good ideas come
from but much more
important producible and
good value packagingrdquo
Although this mini newsletter is largely devoted to GreyconMill we could not resist
including the following chart showing the evolution (over released versions) of the
time and memory to perform load + schedule + open order book + filter order book
-
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
-
10
20
30
40
50
60
79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86
Nov2013 Feb2014 Apr2014 Jun2014 Sep2014 Jan2015 May2015 Aug2016
ME
MO
RY
(MB
)
TIM
E (
S)
opt-Studio - Initial Load Performance Evolution
X-TrimmdashScore Separation
Back in 2003 whilst
implementing X-Trim at a
most interesting triple-
knife corrugating plant
called SCHELLING AG (in
Switzerland) the owner of
that business Mr Beat
Schelling posed the
minimum separation
problem
This is concerned with re-
arranging the sheets in a
slitting pattern so that the
scoring knives are not
closer than a certain
minimum distance
(typically 70 mm) see
picture on the right This
problem was new to us
and it has quite high
computational
complexity the number of
ways a single pattern with
n distinct sheets can be re-
arranged is frac12 n 2n Even
for 8 sheets there are over
5 million combinations
So in due course
Constantine Goulimis
published a paper in the
prestigious
Journal of
the
Operational
Research
Society
describing
the problem
and inviting
solutions
Nothing much happened
for the next 11 years but a
comprehensive paper on
the topic has now been
published proposing what
look like very promising
algorithms
Aa1
a2Aa
1a2
Aa1
a2 Aa
1a2
Cc1
c2
Cc1
c2
Bb1
b2
Bb1
b2
Aa1
a2 Aa
1a2
Cc1
c2
Bb1
b2
7 Calico House
Plantation Wharf
London SW11 3TN
Phone +44 20 7978 0700
E-mail cnggreyconcom
Message from the CEO
We acquired GreyconMill back in 2008 and so
far we have implemented it in eleven plants
(in nine countries) We have now received the
go-ahead from two further clients one in the
paper industry with five plants in Europe and
another with five plants in the film industry in
the US
This feels fitting for our 30th anniversary
Constantine (who now has a blog)
Greycon at the SAP Forest
Products Paper and
Packaging Forum 2015
Greycon will be participating
in this yearrsquos SAP Forest
Products Paper and
Packaging Forum in
Frankenthal Germany
(October 21-22 2015)We look
forward to catching up with
our joint Greycon-SAP
customers
Click here for more
information
Nikos on the Greek Startupbus
Nikos Sideris is a software engineer
working in the GreyconMill dev team
during the past two years
His restless spirit led him to participate
in a startup competition in 2014 which
took place on ahellip bus
Eight buses drove from Estonia-
Tallinn Poland-Gdansk
Greece-Athens Italy-
Naples Spain-Barcelona
France-Paris Germany-
Berlin and UK-
Manchester to Vienna
carrying talented developers designers
marketers who competed to launch a
startup in 72 hours during this journey
Thirty participants from Greece
boarded the Greek startupBus the first
day at 0630 travelling to Vienna They
had only 72 hours to develop their own
startup project
Nikosrsquo idea was the ldquoGoTruckrdquo project
The idea was to develop a platform that
connects truck drivers or truck
companies with long-distance
travellers Using this platform the
truck driver declares how many spare
seats he has and the route that he will
follow so that a traveller could join him
and share some costs Basically itrsquos the
idea of
hitchhiking in a
more modern
better scheduled
and safer way
exploiting new
technologies to check for seats
timetables routes and reviews of the
drivers and the travellers
During the journey all the teams
of the five selected ideas
developed a business plan a
presentation for the founders
and a prototype of the
application or platform
Many of the founders have shown a
great interest about Nikosrsquo idea
However in the end the winner was
the ldquoZumordquo project also from the
Greek bus This provides on-demand
interactions using modern
technologies like WebRTC which can
be used in the website of a company
for the ldquohelprdquo or ldquoaskrdquo button Clicking
the button would instantly open a
video-chat or a chatroom with
someone from the shop without
having to switch context
The StartUpBus was a great experience
for Nikos who has met a lot of restless
minds from all over Europe
Page 2 miniGreyLetter
GreyconMill Diagnostics
The question of
automated diagnostics for
a system designed for 7 times
24 operation is of
paramount importance
The 30 release of
GreyconMill implements a
user-extensible system of
diagnostics borrowing the
concepts already in use in
our separate Heartbeat
Monitor (HBM) If you are
not aware of this HBM
runs as a separate process
(ideally on separate
hardware) and
periodically conducts
database sanity checks
(for example whether an
incoming message failed)
When HBM detects an
abnormal situation it
issues an alert by email
with the relevant details
In this release
GreyconMill introduces a
standard set of such sanity
checks the screen for this
is shown below The
bottom section of the
screen shows an entry for
each of the checks that
returned any result when
executed together with
the number of results it
would detect
If you need to add your
own custom checks it is
very easy to do so You
can create a database view
and then define the
scenarios around that
view The process literally
takes a few minutes
Windows 10
Windows 10 is now
officially released and
Greycon is proud to
confirm that all
Greycon software is
compatible with it
New Projects
Since the previous
newsletter Greycon is
happy to announce
new projects with
Ilim of Russia at the
Koryazhma mill
Amcor Flexibles for
the plant of
Venturina in Italy
Jian Paper Anhui
Shanying Paper of
China with 9 Paper
Machines in scope
In a separate
development our
software is currently
on trial at a tissue mill
Up till now tissue
mills have not been a
fertile market for our
systems due to the
reduced product
complexity in tissue
GreyconMill Label Printing
Historically the
information that
GreyconMill could
include in the printed
item labels was hardndash
coded
Hence every time a
customer needed a new
field we had to develop a
new feature to add it
We reduced that problem
when we made all user-
defined item (and order)
properties accessible to
the printing functionality
However that did not
cover all possible
scenarios and still
required code changes
case by case
In 30 we introduced a
customisable database
function for defining
which item-related values
will be printed This
includes values calculated
through complex
formulas or through
linking the item with any
related table
September 2015 Page 3
GreyconMill Performance Improvement in 30
For this release we
investigated the impact of
the size of the database in
the performance The
original intention was to
extend and improve the
purge functionality That
investigation spotted a
few places where the
sensitivity to database
size could be improved
upon Quite surprisingly
once we addressed those
the correlation between
the database size and the
observed performance
was eliminated
Since the introduction of
the performance index in
27 which allows for
consistent measurements
of five common
GreyconMill tasks
Greyconrsquos Quality
Assurance department
(QA) has been
monitoring each release
We also used this index
to measure the impact of
the code improvements
on a copy of Elocoatrsquos
production database
(with over 30000 orders
and 1000000 items)
Running on consistent
hardware the
performance index
showed a remarkable
improvement from 15 to
25 For example finding
items in the inventory
screen by creation
machine went down from
46 to 09 seconds
Improved messages
traceability
In the 86 Greycon Suite
release we will deliver a
new function that allows
the user to open an opt-
Studio entity (order task
stock item etc) and
ldquoTrace messagesrdquo This
will bring a list of all the
Integration Manager
messages that modified
(directly or indirectly)
that entity This
enhancement will speed-
up the analysis of issues
that occur in the
interface of opt-Studio
and other systems
GreyconMill 30 is
already including more
details in the messages it
writes for Integration
Manager to read
The production
history has a more
modern chart with
zoom capability
allowing an overview
and a closer look at
the same time to spot
instantly deviations
from normal
production
GreyconMill Production HistorymdashNew Chart with Zoom
GreyconMill Import only New Settings
The options to import user
settings include now the
ability to import only the
new settings defined in the
settings file while keeping
the existing ones This is
very useful when a
customer starts using a
new screen allowing him
to define his custom layout
for that screen and add it
automatically to all his
users
Page 4 miniGreyLetter
Track Item amp Quality
The quality report of an
item and its genealogy
or production tracking
are two fundamental
features in GreyconMill
In 30 we have
combined them in the
Track item screen
which we also fine-
tuned by
Making the details
section configurable
and allowing to hide
it entirely in one click
Polishing the
drawing of the
tracking graph for
both the horizontal
and vertical displays
Making the quality
report available on
any item one right-
click away
The primary machine and
winder registration
screens are now
configurable they also
include a multi-line notes
field
GreyconMill Notes and Configurable Registration
The notes at the winder
can then inherit from the
corresponding notes of
the input item(s) and even
save different notes for
each production lane The
system can also append
general notes to many
lanes at the same time
even if those lanes have
different notes each
GreyconMill Track Item Usability and Quality Report
You can now come by riverboat
to our office in London
September 2015 Page 5
opt-Studio Performance Evolution
GM Release 30
The 30 Release Notes
can be found in the wiki
(registration required)
Comment on the Score
Separation Algorithm by
Mr B Schelling
ldquoThe paper shows very
clearly that trim-
optimization is a truly
difficult matter that is
underestimated by 99 of
the employees in the
industry and probably by
150 of our customers
Instead of complaining
about it they should be
thankful that in our
industry we optimize and
achieve economic and
ecological benefits for
them Just imagine how
expensive corrugated
board would be if there
was no trim-optimization
So what do we do about it
We rather buy different
paper widths run a lot of
side trim Doing so we
lose a lot of productivity
and as a result packaging
prices must go up Vicious
cycle
But we should optimize
the sheet sizes so that
they fit on the corrugator
This has to be done in
sample department where
not only good ideas come
from but much more
important producible and
good value packagingrdquo
Although this mini newsletter is largely devoted to GreyconMill we could not resist
including the following chart showing the evolution (over released versions) of the
time and memory to perform load + schedule + open order book + filter order book
-
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
-
10
20
30
40
50
60
79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86
Nov2013 Feb2014 Apr2014 Jun2014 Sep2014 Jan2015 May2015 Aug2016
ME
MO
RY
(MB
)
TIM
E (
S)
opt-Studio - Initial Load Performance Evolution
X-TrimmdashScore Separation
Back in 2003 whilst
implementing X-Trim at a
most interesting triple-
knife corrugating plant
called SCHELLING AG (in
Switzerland) the owner of
that business Mr Beat
Schelling posed the
minimum separation
problem
This is concerned with re-
arranging the sheets in a
slitting pattern so that the
scoring knives are not
closer than a certain
minimum distance
(typically 70 mm) see
picture on the right This
problem was new to us
and it has quite high
computational
complexity the number of
ways a single pattern with
n distinct sheets can be re-
arranged is frac12 n 2n Even
for 8 sheets there are over
5 million combinations
So in due course
Constantine Goulimis
published a paper in the
prestigious
Journal of
the
Operational
Research
Society
describing
the problem
and inviting
solutions
Nothing much happened
for the next 11 years but a
comprehensive paper on
the topic has now been
published proposing what
look like very promising
algorithms
Aa1
a2Aa
1a2
Aa1
a2 Aa
1a2
Cc1
c2
Cc1
c2
Bb1
b2
Bb1
b2
Aa1
a2 Aa
1a2
Cc1
c2
Bb1
b2
7 Calico House
Plantation Wharf
London SW11 3TN
Phone +44 20 7978 0700
E-mail cnggreyconcom
Message from the CEO
We acquired GreyconMill back in 2008 and so
far we have implemented it in eleven plants
(in nine countries) We have now received the
go-ahead from two further clients one in the
paper industry with five plants in Europe and
another with five plants in the film industry in
the US
This feels fitting for our 30th anniversary
Constantine (who now has a blog)
Greycon at the SAP Forest
Products Paper and
Packaging Forum 2015
Greycon will be participating
in this yearrsquos SAP Forest
Products Paper and
Packaging Forum in
Frankenthal Germany
(October 21-22 2015)We look
forward to catching up with
our joint Greycon-SAP
customers
Click here for more
information
Nikos on the Greek Startupbus
Nikos Sideris is a software engineer
working in the GreyconMill dev team
during the past two years
His restless spirit led him to participate
in a startup competition in 2014 which
took place on ahellip bus
Eight buses drove from Estonia-
Tallinn Poland-Gdansk
Greece-Athens Italy-
Naples Spain-Barcelona
France-Paris Germany-
Berlin and UK-
Manchester to Vienna
carrying talented developers designers
marketers who competed to launch a
startup in 72 hours during this journey
Thirty participants from Greece
boarded the Greek startupBus the first
day at 0630 travelling to Vienna They
had only 72 hours to develop their own
startup project
Nikosrsquo idea was the ldquoGoTruckrdquo project
The idea was to develop a platform that
connects truck drivers or truck
companies with long-distance
travellers Using this platform the
truck driver declares how many spare
seats he has and the route that he will
follow so that a traveller could join him
and share some costs Basically itrsquos the
idea of
hitchhiking in a
more modern
better scheduled
and safer way
exploiting new
technologies to check for seats
timetables routes and reviews of the
drivers and the travellers
During the journey all the teams
of the five selected ideas
developed a business plan a
presentation for the founders
and a prototype of the
application or platform
Many of the founders have shown a
great interest about Nikosrsquo idea
However in the end the winner was
the ldquoZumordquo project also from the
Greek bus This provides on-demand
interactions using modern
technologies like WebRTC which can
be used in the website of a company
for the ldquohelprdquo or ldquoaskrdquo button Clicking
the button would instantly open a
video-chat or a chatroom with
someone from the shop without
having to switch context
The StartUpBus was a great experience
for Nikos who has met a lot of restless
minds from all over Europe
September 2015 Page 3
GreyconMill Performance Improvement in 30
For this release we
investigated the impact of
the size of the database in
the performance The
original intention was to
extend and improve the
purge functionality That
investigation spotted a
few places where the
sensitivity to database
size could be improved
upon Quite surprisingly
once we addressed those
the correlation between
the database size and the
observed performance
was eliminated
Since the introduction of
the performance index in
27 which allows for
consistent measurements
of five common
GreyconMill tasks
Greyconrsquos Quality
Assurance department
(QA) has been
monitoring each release
We also used this index
to measure the impact of
the code improvements
on a copy of Elocoatrsquos
production database
(with over 30000 orders
and 1000000 items)
Running on consistent
hardware the
performance index
showed a remarkable
improvement from 15 to
25 For example finding
items in the inventory
screen by creation
machine went down from
46 to 09 seconds
Improved messages
traceability
In the 86 Greycon Suite
release we will deliver a
new function that allows
the user to open an opt-
Studio entity (order task
stock item etc) and
ldquoTrace messagesrdquo This
will bring a list of all the
Integration Manager
messages that modified
(directly or indirectly)
that entity This
enhancement will speed-
up the analysis of issues
that occur in the
interface of opt-Studio
and other systems
GreyconMill 30 is
already including more
details in the messages it
writes for Integration
Manager to read
The production
history has a more
modern chart with
zoom capability
allowing an overview
and a closer look at
the same time to spot
instantly deviations
from normal
production
GreyconMill Production HistorymdashNew Chart with Zoom
GreyconMill Import only New Settings
The options to import user
settings include now the
ability to import only the
new settings defined in the
settings file while keeping
the existing ones This is
very useful when a
customer starts using a
new screen allowing him
to define his custom layout
for that screen and add it
automatically to all his
users
Page 4 miniGreyLetter
Track Item amp Quality
The quality report of an
item and its genealogy
or production tracking
are two fundamental
features in GreyconMill
In 30 we have
combined them in the
Track item screen
which we also fine-
tuned by
Making the details
section configurable
and allowing to hide
it entirely in one click
Polishing the
drawing of the
tracking graph for
both the horizontal
and vertical displays
Making the quality
report available on
any item one right-
click away
The primary machine and
winder registration
screens are now
configurable they also
include a multi-line notes
field
GreyconMill Notes and Configurable Registration
The notes at the winder
can then inherit from the
corresponding notes of
the input item(s) and even
save different notes for
each production lane The
system can also append
general notes to many
lanes at the same time
even if those lanes have
different notes each
GreyconMill Track Item Usability and Quality Report
You can now come by riverboat
to our office in London
September 2015 Page 5
opt-Studio Performance Evolution
GM Release 30
The 30 Release Notes
can be found in the wiki
(registration required)
Comment on the Score
Separation Algorithm by
Mr B Schelling
ldquoThe paper shows very
clearly that trim-
optimization is a truly
difficult matter that is
underestimated by 99 of
the employees in the
industry and probably by
150 of our customers
Instead of complaining
about it they should be
thankful that in our
industry we optimize and
achieve economic and
ecological benefits for
them Just imagine how
expensive corrugated
board would be if there
was no trim-optimization
So what do we do about it
We rather buy different
paper widths run a lot of
side trim Doing so we
lose a lot of productivity
and as a result packaging
prices must go up Vicious
cycle
But we should optimize
the sheet sizes so that
they fit on the corrugator
This has to be done in
sample department where
not only good ideas come
from but much more
important producible and
good value packagingrdquo
Although this mini newsletter is largely devoted to GreyconMill we could not resist
including the following chart showing the evolution (over released versions) of the
time and memory to perform load + schedule + open order book + filter order book
-
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
-
10
20
30
40
50
60
79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86
Nov2013 Feb2014 Apr2014 Jun2014 Sep2014 Jan2015 May2015 Aug2016
ME
MO
RY
(MB
)
TIM
E (
S)
opt-Studio - Initial Load Performance Evolution
X-TrimmdashScore Separation
Back in 2003 whilst
implementing X-Trim at a
most interesting triple-
knife corrugating plant
called SCHELLING AG (in
Switzerland) the owner of
that business Mr Beat
Schelling posed the
minimum separation
problem
This is concerned with re-
arranging the sheets in a
slitting pattern so that the
scoring knives are not
closer than a certain
minimum distance
(typically 70 mm) see
picture on the right This
problem was new to us
and it has quite high
computational
complexity the number of
ways a single pattern with
n distinct sheets can be re-
arranged is frac12 n 2n Even
for 8 sheets there are over
5 million combinations
So in due course
Constantine Goulimis
published a paper in the
prestigious
Journal of
the
Operational
Research
Society
describing
the problem
and inviting
solutions
Nothing much happened
for the next 11 years but a
comprehensive paper on
the topic has now been
published proposing what
look like very promising
algorithms
Aa1
a2Aa
1a2
Aa1
a2 Aa
1a2
Cc1
c2
Cc1
c2
Bb1
b2
Bb1
b2
Aa1
a2 Aa
1a2
Cc1
c2
Bb1
b2
7 Calico House
Plantation Wharf
London SW11 3TN
Phone +44 20 7978 0700
E-mail cnggreyconcom
Message from the CEO
We acquired GreyconMill back in 2008 and so
far we have implemented it in eleven plants
(in nine countries) We have now received the
go-ahead from two further clients one in the
paper industry with five plants in Europe and
another with five plants in the film industry in
the US
This feels fitting for our 30th anniversary
Constantine (who now has a blog)
Greycon at the SAP Forest
Products Paper and
Packaging Forum 2015
Greycon will be participating
in this yearrsquos SAP Forest
Products Paper and
Packaging Forum in
Frankenthal Germany
(October 21-22 2015)We look
forward to catching up with
our joint Greycon-SAP
customers
Click here for more
information
Nikos on the Greek Startupbus
Nikos Sideris is a software engineer
working in the GreyconMill dev team
during the past two years
His restless spirit led him to participate
in a startup competition in 2014 which
took place on ahellip bus
Eight buses drove from Estonia-
Tallinn Poland-Gdansk
Greece-Athens Italy-
Naples Spain-Barcelona
France-Paris Germany-
Berlin and UK-
Manchester to Vienna
carrying talented developers designers
marketers who competed to launch a
startup in 72 hours during this journey
Thirty participants from Greece
boarded the Greek startupBus the first
day at 0630 travelling to Vienna They
had only 72 hours to develop their own
startup project
Nikosrsquo idea was the ldquoGoTruckrdquo project
The idea was to develop a platform that
connects truck drivers or truck
companies with long-distance
travellers Using this platform the
truck driver declares how many spare
seats he has and the route that he will
follow so that a traveller could join him
and share some costs Basically itrsquos the
idea of
hitchhiking in a
more modern
better scheduled
and safer way
exploiting new
technologies to check for seats
timetables routes and reviews of the
drivers and the travellers
During the journey all the teams
of the five selected ideas
developed a business plan a
presentation for the founders
and a prototype of the
application or platform
Many of the founders have shown a
great interest about Nikosrsquo idea
However in the end the winner was
the ldquoZumordquo project also from the
Greek bus This provides on-demand
interactions using modern
technologies like WebRTC which can
be used in the website of a company
for the ldquohelprdquo or ldquoaskrdquo button Clicking
the button would instantly open a
video-chat or a chatroom with
someone from the shop without
having to switch context
The StartUpBus was a great experience
for Nikos who has met a lot of restless
minds from all over Europe
Page 4 miniGreyLetter
Track Item amp Quality
The quality report of an
item and its genealogy
or production tracking
are two fundamental
features in GreyconMill
In 30 we have
combined them in the
Track item screen
which we also fine-
tuned by
Making the details
section configurable
and allowing to hide
it entirely in one click
Polishing the
drawing of the
tracking graph for
both the horizontal
and vertical displays
Making the quality
report available on
any item one right-
click away
The primary machine and
winder registration
screens are now
configurable they also
include a multi-line notes
field
GreyconMill Notes and Configurable Registration
The notes at the winder
can then inherit from the
corresponding notes of
the input item(s) and even
save different notes for
each production lane The
system can also append
general notes to many
lanes at the same time
even if those lanes have
different notes each
GreyconMill Track Item Usability and Quality Report
You can now come by riverboat
to our office in London
September 2015 Page 5
opt-Studio Performance Evolution
GM Release 30
The 30 Release Notes
can be found in the wiki
(registration required)
Comment on the Score
Separation Algorithm by
Mr B Schelling
ldquoThe paper shows very
clearly that trim-
optimization is a truly
difficult matter that is
underestimated by 99 of
the employees in the
industry and probably by
150 of our customers
Instead of complaining
about it they should be
thankful that in our
industry we optimize and
achieve economic and
ecological benefits for
them Just imagine how
expensive corrugated
board would be if there
was no trim-optimization
So what do we do about it
We rather buy different
paper widths run a lot of
side trim Doing so we
lose a lot of productivity
and as a result packaging
prices must go up Vicious
cycle
But we should optimize
the sheet sizes so that
they fit on the corrugator
This has to be done in
sample department where
not only good ideas come
from but much more
important producible and
good value packagingrdquo
Although this mini newsletter is largely devoted to GreyconMill we could not resist
including the following chart showing the evolution (over released versions) of the
time and memory to perform load + schedule + open order book + filter order book
-
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
-
10
20
30
40
50
60
79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86
Nov2013 Feb2014 Apr2014 Jun2014 Sep2014 Jan2015 May2015 Aug2016
ME
MO
RY
(MB
)
TIM
E (
S)
opt-Studio - Initial Load Performance Evolution
X-TrimmdashScore Separation
Back in 2003 whilst
implementing X-Trim at a
most interesting triple-
knife corrugating plant
called SCHELLING AG (in
Switzerland) the owner of
that business Mr Beat
Schelling posed the
minimum separation
problem
This is concerned with re-
arranging the sheets in a
slitting pattern so that the
scoring knives are not
closer than a certain
minimum distance
(typically 70 mm) see
picture on the right This
problem was new to us
and it has quite high
computational
complexity the number of
ways a single pattern with
n distinct sheets can be re-
arranged is frac12 n 2n Even
for 8 sheets there are over
5 million combinations
So in due course
Constantine Goulimis
published a paper in the
prestigious
Journal of
the
Operational
Research
Society
describing
the problem
and inviting
solutions
Nothing much happened
for the next 11 years but a
comprehensive paper on
the topic has now been
published proposing what
look like very promising
algorithms
Aa1
a2Aa
1a2
Aa1
a2 Aa
1a2
Cc1
c2
Cc1
c2
Bb1
b2
Bb1
b2
Aa1
a2 Aa
1a2
Cc1
c2
Bb1
b2
7 Calico House
Plantation Wharf
London SW11 3TN
Phone +44 20 7978 0700
E-mail cnggreyconcom
Message from the CEO
We acquired GreyconMill back in 2008 and so
far we have implemented it in eleven plants
(in nine countries) We have now received the
go-ahead from two further clients one in the
paper industry with five plants in Europe and
another with five plants in the film industry in
the US
This feels fitting for our 30th anniversary
Constantine (who now has a blog)
Greycon at the SAP Forest
Products Paper and
Packaging Forum 2015
Greycon will be participating
in this yearrsquos SAP Forest
Products Paper and
Packaging Forum in
Frankenthal Germany
(October 21-22 2015)We look
forward to catching up with
our joint Greycon-SAP
customers
Click here for more
information
Nikos on the Greek Startupbus
Nikos Sideris is a software engineer
working in the GreyconMill dev team
during the past two years
His restless spirit led him to participate
in a startup competition in 2014 which
took place on ahellip bus
Eight buses drove from Estonia-
Tallinn Poland-Gdansk
Greece-Athens Italy-
Naples Spain-Barcelona
France-Paris Germany-
Berlin and UK-
Manchester to Vienna
carrying talented developers designers
marketers who competed to launch a
startup in 72 hours during this journey
Thirty participants from Greece
boarded the Greek startupBus the first
day at 0630 travelling to Vienna They
had only 72 hours to develop their own
startup project
Nikosrsquo idea was the ldquoGoTruckrdquo project
The idea was to develop a platform that
connects truck drivers or truck
companies with long-distance
travellers Using this platform the
truck driver declares how many spare
seats he has and the route that he will
follow so that a traveller could join him
and share some costs Basically itrsquos the
idea of
hitchhiking in a
more modern
better scheduled
and safer way
exploiting new
technologies to check for seats
timetables routes and reviews of the
drivers and the travellers
During the journey all the teams
of the five selected ideas
developed a business plan a
presentation for the founders
and a prototype of the
application or platform
Many of the founders have shown a
great interest about Nikosrsquo idea
However in the end the winner was
the ldquoZumordquo project also from the
Greek bus This provides on-demand
interactions using modern
technologies like WebRTC which can
be used in the website of a company
for the ldquohelprdquo or ldquoaskrdquo button Clicking
the button would instantly open a
video-chat or a chatroom with
someone from the shop without
having to switch context
The StartUpBus was a great experience
for Nikos who has met a lot of restless
minds from all over Europe
September 2015 Page 5
opt-Studio Performance Evolution
GM Release 30
The 30 Release Notes
can be found in the wiki
(registration required)
Comment on the Score
Separation Algorithm by
Mr B Schelling
ldquoThe paper shows very
clearly that trim-
optimization is a truly
difficult matter that is
underestimated by 99 of
the employees in the
industry and probably by
150 of our customers
Instead of complaining
about it they should be
thankful that in our
industry we optimize and
achieve economic and
ecological benefits for
them Just imagine how
expensive corrugated
board would be if there
was no trim-optimization
So what do we do about it
We rather buy different
paper widths run a lot of
side trim Doing so we
lose a lot of productivity
and as a result packaging
prices must go up Vicious
cycle
But we should optimize
the sheet sizes so that
they fit on the corrugator
This has to be done in
sample department where
not only good ideas come
from but much more
important producible and
good value packagingrdquo
Although this mini newsletter is largely devoted to GreyconMill we could not resist
including the following chart showing the evolution (over released versions) of the
time and memory to perform load + schedule + open order book + filter order book
-
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
-
10
20
30
40
50
60
79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86
Nov2013 Feb2014 Apr2014 Jun2014 Sep2014 Jan2015 May2015 Aug2016
ME
MO
RY
(MB
)
TIM
E (
S)
opt-Studio - Initial Load Performance Evolution
X-TrimmdashScore Separation
Back in 2003 whilst
implementing X-Trim at a
most interesting triple-
knife corrugating plant
called SCHELLING AG (in
Switzerland) the owner of
that business Mr Beat
Schelling posed the
minimum separation
problem
This is concerned with re-
arranging the sheets in a
slitting pattern so that the
scoring knives are not
closer than a certain
minimum distance
(typically 70 mm) see
picture on the right This
problem was new to us
and it has quite high
computational
complexity the number of
ways a single pattern with
n distinct sheets can be re-
arranged is frac12 n 2n Even
for 8 sheets there are over
5 million combinations
So in due course
Constantine Goulimis
published a paper in the
prestigious
Journal of
the
Operational
Research
Society
describing
the problem
and inviting
solutions
Nothing much happened
for the next 11 years but a
comprehensive paper on
the topic has now been
published proposing what
look like very promising
algorithms
Aa1
a2Aa
1a2
Aa1
a2 Aa
1a2
Cc1
c2
Cc1
c2
Bb1
b2
Bb1
b2
Aa1
a2 Aa
1a2
Cc1
c2
Bb1
b2
7 Calico House
Plantation Wharf
London SW11 3TN
Phone +44 20 7978 0700
E-mail cnggreyconcom
Message from the CEO
We acquired GreyconMill back in 2008 and so
far we have implemented it in eleven plants
(in nine countries) We have now received the
go-ahead from two further clients one in the
paper industry with five plants in Europe and
another with five plants in the film industry in
the US
This feels fitting for our 30th anniversary
Constantine (who now has a blog)
Greycon at the SAP Forest
Products Paper and
Packaging Forum 2015
Greycon will be participating
in this yearrsquos SAP Forest
Products Paper and
Packaging Forum in
Frankenthal Germany
(October 21-22 2015)We look
forward to catching up with
our joint Greycon-SAP
customers
Click here for more
information
Nikos on the Greek Startupbus
Nikos Sideris is a software engineer
working in the GreyconMill dev team
during the past two years
His restless spirit led him to participate
in a startup competition in 2014 which
took place on ahellip bus
Eight buses drove from Estonia-
Tallinn Poland-Gdansk
Greece-Athens Italy-
Naples Spain-Barcelona
France-Paris Germany-
Berlin and UK-
Manchester to Vienna
carrying talented developers designers
marketers who competed to launch a
startup in 72 hours during this journey
Thirty participants from Greece
boarded the Greek startupBus the first
day at 0630 travelling to Vienna They
had only 72 hours to develop their own
startup project
Nikosrsquo idea was the ldquoGoTruckrdquo project
The idea was to develop a platform that
connects truck drivers or truck
companies with long-distance
travellers Using this platform the
truck driver declares how many spare
seats he has and the route that he will
follow so that a traveller could join him
and share some costs Basically itrsquos the
idea of
hitchhiking in a
more modern
better scheduled
and safer way
exploiting new
technologies to check for seats
timetables routes and reviews of the
drivers and the travellers
During the journey all the teams
of the five selected ideas
developed a business plan a
presentation for the founders
and a prototype of the
application or platform
Many of the founders have shown a
great interest about Nikosrsquo idea
However in the end the winner was
the ldquoZumordquo project also from the
Greek bus This provides on-demand
interactions using modern
technologies like WebRTC which can
be used in the website of a company
for the ldquohelprdquo or ldquoaskrdquo button Clicking
the button would instantly open a
video-chat or a chatroom with
someone from the shop without
having to switch context
The StartUpBus was a great experience
for Nikos who has met a lot of restless
minds from all over Europe
7 Calico House
Plantation Wharf
London SW11 3TN
Phone +44 20 7978 0700
E-mail cnggreyconcom
Message from the CEO
We acquired GreyconMill back in 2008 and so
far we have implemented it in eleven plants
(in nine countries) We have now received the
go-ahead from two further clients one in the
paper industry with five plants in Europe and
another with five plants in the film industry in
the US
This feels fitting for our 30th anniversary
Constantine (who now has a blog)
Greycon at the SAP Forest
Products Paper and
Packaging Forum 2015
Greycon will be participating
in this yearrsquos SAP Forest
Products Paper and
Packaging Forum in
Frankenthal Germany
(October 21-22 2015)We look
forward to catching up with
our joint Greycon-SAP
customers
Click here for more
information
Nikos on the Greek Startupbus
Nikos Sideris is a software engineer
working in the GreyconMill dev team
during the past two years
His restless spirit led him to participate
in a startup competition in 2014 which
took place on ahellip bus
Eight buses drove from Estonia-
Tallinn Poland-Gdansk
Greece-Athens Italy-
Naples Spain-Barcelona
France-Paris Germany-
Berlin and UK-
Manchester to Vienna
carrying talented developers designers
marketers who competed to launch a
startup in 72 hours during this journey
Thirty participants from Greece
boarded the Greek startupBus the first
day at 0630 travelling to Vienna They
had only 72 hours to develop their own
startup project
Nikosrsquo idea was the ldquoGoTruckrdquo project
The idea was to develop a platform that
connects truck drivers or truck
companies with long-distance
travellers Using this platform the
truck driver declares how many spare
seats he has and the route that he will
follow so that a traveller could join him
and share some costs Basically itrsquos the
idea of
hitchhiking in a
more modern
better scheduled
and safer way
exploiting new
technologies to check for seats
timetables routes and reviews of the
drivers and the travellers
During the journey all the teams
of the five selected ideas
developed a business plan a
presentation for the founders
and a prototype of the
application or platform
Many of the founders have shown a
great interest about Nikosrsquo idea
However in the end the winner was
the ldquoZumordquo project also from the
Greek bus This provides on-demand
interactions using modern
technologies like WebRTC which can
be used in the website of a company
for the ldquohelprdquo or ldquoaskrdquo button Clicking
the button would instantly open a
video-chat or a chatroom with
someone from the shop without
having to switch context
The StartUpBus was a great experience
for Nikos who has met a lot of restless
minds from all over Europe