Copyright © 2010-2025 Red Planet Software

“Optimisation (noun):
an act, process, or methodology of making something (such as a design, system, or decision) as fully perfect, functional, or effective as possible

specifically : the mathematical procedures (such as finding the maximum of a function) involved in this

Merriam-Webster

About Us


Red Planet Software was formed in 2010 by Paul Cooper, a Steel Industry professional with over 30 years of sales and marketing experience working for a number of industry leading Steel Stockholders.


Very early in his career, Paul found that the margins on orders was exceptionally tight, particularly with construction steel, and the difference between winning and losing an order would often be dictated by how efficient the stock bars allocated to a quote were.


Calculating the best yield from the various stock lengths available was a time consuming manual process, where human error often crept in.  Time constraints also meant a good guess at the best way to cut an order would have to suffice.  This in turn lead to some large variations in quotes from one competitor to the next, where varying stock levels and the skill of the salespersons calculations would dictate what was offered.


Soon, desktop computers started to appear in offices, and this opened up a new possibility.  Paul realised that on bigger enquiries with large numbers of cut length requirements, and several different stock lengths available, the number of permutations needing to be worked through was beyond human reckoning.  


Paul started to develop a computer program that would churn through all the permutations.  Initially, the program worked slowly through the possibilities, and would report back in a few minutes with the answer.  However, this was a vast improvement on the manual, pen & paper method, and started to give users an edge over competitors both in efficient quoting, and quote turnaround time.


Over time the program continued to be refined, leading to calculation run time being brought down to mere milliseconds, making it useful even for simpler orders to be processed, or for complicated orders to be quoted efficiently even during a conversation.


Further enhancements including graphical representations of cutting patterns, and a powerful suite of costing tools were added, resulting in the forerunner of the Cutting Calculator program in use today.


Over the years, Paul’s search for ways to improve the day to day processes involved in working with materials lead to the development of Metal Calculator Plus.  MCP takes the strain of complex math away from users with a quick and accurate program that gives answers as you type, and allows the calculation of data for non-standard sizes that would not be found in look-up tables.