Introduction:
Cutting department plays vital role in any apparel factory. Organized cutting department may increase productivity of stitching room by substantial percentage. However every apparel factory put many efforts to enhance productivity in room but not concentrate much in room . Low attention in room leads to low output, poor quality etc. in sewing department.
To cut out pattern pieces of garment component as per exact dimension of the pattern from a cloth lay is named fabric cutting. it's totally different from general cutting during which exact dimension isn't taken under consideration .
Apparel production starts with the cutting process. during this process, fabric is being dig components (shapes or patterns of various
garment parts, i.e. front, back, sleeve, collar shapes etc.). In production multiple layers of materials are laid on a table and enormous
number of apparels is being cut at a time. The laid fabric stack is named as lay.
Cutting process includes number of sub-processes
Pattern / Marker Making
Cut Ratio Receiving
Fabric Receiving
Fabric Relaxation
Spreading ( Fabric Layering )
Marker Making
Cutting
Numbering
Sorting
Bundling
Machines Used in Cutting Room
Automatic spreading machine
Automatic cutting machine
Manual cutting with straight knife
Round knife cutting machine
Band knife cutting machine
Die Cutting machine
Computerized automatic cutting machine
The term fabric cutting is merely applicable for garments manufacturing technology.
Factors influencing the cutting processes :
Nature of cloth ( grain line shade, twill etc.)
Thickness of cloth .
Design characteristics of finished garment.
Machines and tables used.
Cutting is mainly ramified as following:
Cutting Room Activity
Band knife: An endless blade vertical knife, around which work piece is moved over the massive cutting table.
Bias: ‘Cut on the Bias’ – cut at an angle to both the warp and therefore the weft of the material , at 45 degree.
Baker’s trolley: A wheeled rack wont to transport sections of the lay from the cutting table to the band knife and from the band
knife to the sorting operations.
Block cutting or blocking out: Cutting roughly around a neighborhood which is subsequently cut very precisely, by various means. Also for splitting the lay, to help handling to the band knife.
Bowing: A fault in woven cloth during which the weft isn't straight across the piece but has curve.
Clicker press: Used for parts of intricate nature and repetitive, also for parts requiring a high degree of accuracy.
Cross: ‘Cut on the cross’ – Cut at right angles to the grain of the material (On bias).
Damage: a cloth fault. it's going to be generated during handling fabric inside factory or faulty fabric sent the material supplier.
Die cutting: Used where accuracy is vital and there's enough repetition.
End loss: the material at the top of the lay that's not covered by the marker.
Face a method spreading: The face side of every ply faces an equivalent way (up or down)
Face to face spreading: Method of spreading during which the material is alternately facing up or down, as a results of continuous to and
fro movement of the roll over the lay.
Face to face a method spreading: Used for directional fabric where the pile (direction) is required to dwell an equivalent direction to the plies.
Layout (pattern layout): The geometrical layout of the pattern pieces during a garment, which is cut around to supply the parts of the garment.
Marker: a person who prepares the pattern layout and/or who marks the layout onto the lay or
onto a paper or a cloth. a bit of paper, cloth etc. representing the layout.
Notch: alittle dig the part, which aids the situation during assembly by indicating to the operator some requirement for matching with other notches or positions within the garment.
On the fold: Method of finishing the material in order that it's folded to half its width.
Shading: Means color cloth. it's commonly wont to imply that a specific bit/roll of fabric is different in shade from
another bit.
Shade Numbering : Process of numbering parts to make sure they're of same shade.
Slub: an area thick place within the yarn during a cloth usually caused by error but in some cloths it's introduced purposely
Operation flow chart:
OTT (On Time Tracking)
⇓
Fabric Receive (from FG store)
⇓
Pilot Cut at least 120 pcs
⇓
Test part sending/receiving Embellishment
⇓
Sending to pilot line for test
⇓
Technical Department
⇓
Receive test report & PP meeting
⇓
PCD (Plan Cut Date)
⇓
Fabric spreading (for bulk)
⇓
Marker making (manual)
Productivity Improvement
Plenty of formula’s are there to live productivity for instance , productivity = output / input. Although there's no effective and practical thanks to measure productivity in room but practically factory may plan and measure productivity in following way:
Action one: List of work, which is in hand for cutting.
….Style Quantity Type of material
Xyz 7000 garments Chiffon
Abc 9000 garments Denim
Cde 2500 garments Poplin
Fdc 7500 garments Chambray
Rtc 3000 garments Chambray
Ytc 4500 garments Georgette
Etc 5000 garments Corduroy
Action two: As per the production plan daily requirement of cutting for next one week for sewing.
….Style Quantity Type of material
Xyz 1000 garments Chiffon
Cde 300 garments Poplin
Fdc 500 garments Chambray
Ytc 300 garments Georgette
————————————————————– Total = 2100 garments.
Action three:
From industrial management department following data has been provided:
A- Spreading time of ordinary 100 plies.
B- Maximum number of plies of cloth to be cut in one layer.
C- Consumption per garment.
D- Number of clothes marker plan.
E- Total cut time of 1 layer.
G- Parts to be cut by band knife.
H- Parts to be cut by dies.
I- Parts to be attached with fused interlining.
J- Stickering and bundling method and instruction.
For current planned style
Action four:
Analysis and planning of cutting activity of current designs.
Style xyz analysis
Through above data it's easy to know that if factory got to cut style ‘Xyz’ 1000 garments daily than 500 plies of cloth to be layered (2 garments marker). On the opposite hand consistent with engineering data only 100 plies might be layered in one stroke, meaning five different groups of spreading of 100 plies each. Cutting table occupied for one layer = 2 meter consumption X 2 garments marker = 4 meters table + half meter extra. One layer of 100 plies, spreading time is 3 hours, marking time is ½ hour and cutting time is 45 minutes, meaning 4.5 meter long table would be occupied for 4 hours and quarter-hour for cutting of 1 layer of 100 plies (200 garments). Means 4.5-meter long table may cut only 2 layers in 8-hour shift.
Similarly 100 plies spreading time is 3 hours means 2 spreader may spread 2 groups of 100 plies spreading in one shift. Means total number of spreader required would be 4 for full day 2 for half day for total 1000 garments. Similarly, one layer marking time is half hour, then for entire 5 layers one marking man is required for two .5 hours. On the opposite hand cutting time is 45 minutes for one layer, means cutting man would be required for, 45 minutes X 5 layers = 4 hours 5 minutes.
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