Companies that process steel usually require customized cutting of steel bars for their products. As a result, steel traders are faced with the challenge of meeting customer-specific requirements while producing as little scrap as possible. That means they have to divide the inventory as efficiently as possible in terms of material. Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI have developed software that addresses this problem and minimizes the amount of generated scrap, therefore optimizing material utilization.