It would be better if i describe the project using an analogy.
Person A has a business dealing in pipes. His clients give him their requirements which are generally like
PipeType Nos Length
2mm thick 5 6
6mm thick 5 8
Person A then contacts a pipe manufacturer and asks him to give him X pipes of length 10. He would then cut them according to his clients requirements and deliver it to them.
But if the requirements run into thousand of pipes then it is impossible to manually do this thing.
A 1-D optimizer will come into play here.
A 1-D optimizer will take all the required lengths and give the optimal cutting order. The remaining pieces have to be stored so that they can be used next time during the optimization process.
A full fledged stock management system is not required here. Only the pieces that are remaining as wastage should be stored according to their type. When an optimization is carried out the next time the user should get an option to include pieces that were stored earlier as wastage.
In essence when Person A does optimization he will come to know exactly how many pipes of which type he needs to buy from the manufacturer.