Production Processes in the Cutting Room

Irrespective of size, all cutting rooms use the same basic system to
produce cut work, with the raw materials going through the same
operations in the same sequence. The factor distinguishing the
operations of one cutting room another is the level of technology
employed.
Cutting production starts with the receipt of inspected raw materials,
production orders and graded patterns and finishes when bundles of
cut work are issued for sewing.
The total process has four stages:
1. Planning
2. Spreading
3. Cutting
4. Preparation for sewing
Production Processes in the Cutting Room Cont’d

Figure 4.1: Production Processes in the Cutting Room

 Initiation of Preproduction Operations

Preproduction operations are dependent on perfected patterns. All the

patterns in each size of a style are verified. Pattern verifications includes
checking the following:

→ Correct size and style number marking

→ Correctness of grade increments
→ Compatibility of grading with style specifications
→ Length and alignment of adjoining seam allowance
→ Notch placement of internal markings
→ Placement of grain markings
 Initiation of Preproduction Operations Cont’d

Cut Order Planning

Cut order planning is the process that coordinates customer orders with all
the variables of marker making, spreading, and cutting to minimize total
production costs and meet customer demand for timely products. Cut order
planning involves the following responsibilities.
ø Examining incoming orders and piece goods width and availability.
ø Determining volume, size ratios, and sectioning procedures for marker
making.
ø Determining whether file markers are available or new ones are needed.
ø Developing specifications for optimum marker making and fabric
utilization.
ø Determining most effective use of equipment and personnel.
ø Issuing orders for marker making, spreading, and cutting.
 Initiation of Preproduction Operations Cont’d

Cut Order Planning- Cur order planning considers the following variables:

• Number of sizes/color in order

• Minimum/maximum sizes allowed in marker
• Maximum spread length and ply height
• Percentage of overcut or undercut units
• Fabric cost per yard
• Usable cloth width and Width variations
• Common lines among pattern pieces
• Costs of marking markers and spreading
• Costs of cutting and bundling
• Fabric roll change time
 Cutting

Session Structure
1. Cutting Objectives
2. Cutting Methods
3. Preparation before cutting
4. Fusing
5. Ticketing and bundling
 Cutting
Cutting is the preproduction process
of separating (sectioning, carving,
severing) a spread into garment parts
that are the precise size and shape of
the pattern pieces on a marker.

The cutting process may also involve

to transferring marks and notches
from the marker to garment parts to
assist operator in sewing. Figure 6.1: fabric cutting
 Cutting Objectives
The objective of cutting is to separate fabric parts as replicas of
the pattern pieces in the marker plan.
In achieving this objective, certain requirements must be
fulfilled:

Precision of Cut

Clean Edges

Support of the Lay

Consistent Cutting
 Cutting Objectives Cont’d

I. Precision of cut
Garments cannot be assembled satisfactorily, and they may not fit the
body correctly, if they have not been cut accurately to the pattern
shape.
In manual cutting using a knife, accuracy of cut, given good line
definition, depends on appropriate, well-maintained cutting knives and
on the skill and motivation of the cutter. In both die cutting and
computer-controlled cutting, the achievement of accuracy comes
primarily from the equipment.
II. Clean edges
The raw edge of the fabric should not show fraying or snagging. Such
defects come from an imperfectly sharpened knife. It is possible for
the knife blade to heat up sufficiently to damage the fabric. The
problem arises from the friction of the blade passing through the
fabric.
 Cutting Objectives Cont’d

III. Support of the lay

The cutting system must provide the means not only to support
the fabric but also to allow the blade to penetrate the lowest
ply of a spread and sever all the fibres.
IV. Consistent cutting
The cutting system will cut lays up to a specified height, but this
may need to be reduced as a response to deteriorating cutting
quality. There may be mechanical or human reasons, involving
toppling or leaning, for the height of the lay to be limited.
 Methods of Cutting
Numerous attempts have been made over the years to develop
methods of cutting cloth other than by means of some kind of
metal blade. The following cutting systems are currently in use,
separately or in combination:
✓ Notcher
1. Manual
3. Automated, Numerically
✓ Hand shears
Controlled Cutting Systems
2. Operator controlled cutting
✓ Automatic blade/knife
✓ Straight knife cutting
✓ Round knife ✓ Laser cutting
✓ Band knife ✓ Plasma cutting
✓ Die cutting ✓ Water jet cutting
✓ Drills and thread markers ✓ Ultrasonic cutting
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Hand Shears
✓ Hand shears are normally used only
when cutting single or double plies.
✓ The lower blade of the shears passes
under the plies, but the subsequent
distortion of the fabric is only
temporary and accurate cutting to the
line can be achieved with practice.
✓ Disadvantage of the method lies in the
time it consumes and the consequent
high labour cost per garment. Figure 6.2: Hand Shears
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Straight Knife
✓ sharpness of the blade and its constant bevel is most
consistently cutting achieved by the use of a continuous
abrasive belt.
✓ The straight knife is a common means of cutting lays in
conventional cutting rooms because it is versatile, portable,
cheaper than a band knife, more accurate on curves than a
round knife, and relatively reliable and easy to maintain. Even
if a band knife is used for the main cutting operation, a
straight knife will be used to separate the lay into sections for
easier handling.
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Straight Knife
✓ A recent development has been a
travelling suspension system.
✓ This system supports the knife from
above, which allows the heavy base plate
and rollers to be replaced with a small, flat
base, reducing the possibility of distortion
during cutting.
✓ These servo knife systems enable a much
higher degree of cutting accuracy than
unsupported straight knives, with less Figure 6.3: Straight knife
operator skill required.
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Round Knife
✓ The elements of a round knife are a baseplate, above which
is mounted an electric motor, a handle for the cutter to
direct the blade, and a circular blade rotating so that the
leading edge cuts downwards into the fabric.
✓ Blade diameters vary from 6 cm to 20 cm. Knives with
smaller diameter blades are termed ‘electric shears’ and
are used for cutting simple pieces of fabric.
✓ Round knives are not suitable for cutting curved lines in high
lays because the blade does not strike all the plies
simultaneously at the same point as a vertical blade does.
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Round knife
✓ A round knife is used only for
straight lines or lower lays of
relatively few plies.
✓ It is naturally much more difficult
for a circular blade to negotiate a
tight curve, such as an armhole.

Figure 6.4: Round knife

 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Band Knife
✓ A band knife comprises a series of three or more pulleys,
powered by an electric motor, with a continuously rotating
steel blade mounted on them.
✓ The principle of operation is different from a straight or a
round knife in that the band knife passes through a slot in the
cutting table in a fixed position and the section of lay to be cut
is moved past it. The blade is usually narrower than on a
straight knife and there is no standard behind it, both factors
which assist the cutting of tight curves. A band knife workplace
may be arranged so that the operator either pushes or pulls
the section of lay towards the knife.
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Band Knife
✓ Band knives are used when a
higher standard of cutting accuracy
is required.
✓ When small parts such as collars,
cuffs and pockets are cut, a
template of metal or fibre board in
the shape of the pattern piece may
be clamped to the section of lay on
top of the marker, which is then
drawn past the band knife blade, Figure 6.5: Band knife
cutting exactly along the hard edge.
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Die Cutting
✓ Die cutting involves pressing a rigid blade through the lay of
fabric.
✓ The die is a knife in the shape of a pattern periphery,
including notches.
✓ Free standing dies cut the small parts of larger garments
such as collars and trouser pocketing or the parts of smaller
garments such as bras.
✓ Due to cost of the dies, only appropriate to situations where
large quantities of the same pattern shape will be cut.
✓ It is proportionally more economic for small parts.
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Notchers
✓ Many garment parts require that
notches are cut into the edges of
them to enable alignment during
sewing with other garments parts.
✓ Specialised notching equipment
provides greater accuracy because
a guide lines up the notcher with
the cut edge to give consistent
depth of notch at a consistent right
angle to the edge.
Figure 6.6: Notchers
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Notchers
✓ A knife notcher is an upright, cylindrical device which cuts the
side of a block to a predetermined distance.
✓ Both straight notches and V notches are available.
✓ An alternative machine, the hot notcher, incorporates a
heating element in order that the blade may slightly scorch
the fibers adjacent to the notch in order to prevent it fraying
and disappearing.
✓ This cannot be used with thermoplastic fibers or certain
unlined garments. One fabric requiring it may be a loosely
woven tweed.
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Drills and thread markers

✓ Where reference marks are
needed away from the edge of a
garment part, such as for the
position of pockets, darts and
similar features, a hole is often
drilled through all the plies of fabric
in the lay.
✓ On many fabrics the drill is used
cold and the hole remains visible
until the sewing operator comes to Figure 6.7: Drill machine
use it.
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Computer-controlled Cutting Knives

✓ This method provides the most accurate possible cutting, at
high speed, and to keep the larger systems fully occupied they
are used frequently in a central cutting facility that supplies a
number of separate sewing factories.
✓ A typical computer cutting system has a table with a cutting
surface consisting of nylon bristles, which support the fabric
lays but are flexible enough to permit penetration and
movement of the knife blade. which is supported only at the
top.
Computer Controlled Cutting Knife.mp4
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Computer-controlled cutting knives

✓ The maximum height is usually7.5 cm when compressed. The
number of plies, being dependent on the nature of the fabric
✓ Actual knife speeds can be as high as 80 m/min but the
overall speed of cutting garment parts is generally between 5
and 12 m/min.
✓ A typical arrangement would consist of four spreading tables
supplying each cutting table.
✓ The cutting table and its carriage and cutting head is able to
move between the spreading tables by means of trackson the
floor and has, beyond it, four bundling tables on to which the
cut garments are moved.
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Computer-controlled cutting knives

✓ When the cutting table is lined up with a table on which a lay
has been prepared, the lay is floated on to it in sections which
are then cut and moved on to the bundling table.
✓ The cutting table does not need to be as long as the lay and
its bristle surface can consist of a conveyor that assists in the
transfer of the lay, in sections, from the spreading table and of
the cut work on to the bundling table.
✓ An alternative arrangement is for a flotation cutting table to
be used as a transfer table to a fixed cutting table carrying the
cutting head.
✓ The cutting table is mobile and can be connected directly to
spreading tables.
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Computer-controlled cutting knives

✓ The lay is moved to the cutting zone using air flotation, and
thereafter the conveyor system takes over. The lay is cut in bites,
and operators have to remove each bite of cut work during the time
the cutter is working on the next bite.
✓ Since the computer-controlled knife cuts according to instructions
from the computer rather than by following a pattern line drawn on
a marker, it is possible, to dispense with the use of fully plotted
paper markers and either just plot the information necessary for
bundling on the marker, or eliminate the marker completely and
just label the garment parts that are being cut.
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Laser Cutting
✓ A laser produces a beam of light that can be focused into a very
small spot i.e. 0.25 mm, very high energy density and temperature.
✓ Cutting takes place by burning, melting and vaporization.
✓ It does suffer from limited depth of focus i.e. single ply best.
✓ There is also a risk with thermoplastic fibers.
✓ The system includes a stationary gas laser, a cutting head carrying a
system of mirrors which reflect the laser beam to the cutting line.
✓ Automatic, single ply, laser cutting is fast compared with automatic
multiple ply knife cutters, with speeds of 30–40 m/min.
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Laser Cutting
✓ knife cutters are faster per garment cut, especially with the
recent developments towards faster and cheaper equipment
for cutting at low and medium ply heights. Such equipment is
cheaper to purchase than a laser cutter.
✓ The main disincentives to the use of laser cutters are the
quality of the cut edge.
✓ The possibility of less than 100 percent efficient and the
requirements to maintain the equipment.
✓ Use in production of patterns, labels and appliqués, often in
conjunction with embroidery.
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Plasma Cutting
✓ Plasma cutting was originally developed to satisfy a demand for
high quality cutting on stainless steels and aluminium.
✓ It can also be used to cut textile materials.
✓ Cutting is achieved by means of a high velocity jet of high
temperature ionized gas (argon).
✓ This method has the potential to become the faster cutter of single
plies, but there are engineering and cost issues, and the method is
affected by the same quality of cut problems as was noted for laser
cutting.
Plasma Cutting.mp4
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Water Jet Cutting

✓ A very high velocity, small diameter stream of water is
created by applying high pressure water to a nozzle.
✓ As the jet penetrates successive plies in a spread, the
momentum decreases and cutting ability is reduced.
✓ The jet spreads out and the cut is wider and rougher at the
bottom of the spread.
✓ There is a danger of wet edges, water spotting and
inconsistent cutting quality.
✓ The water used must be filtered and de-ionised.
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Water Jet Cutting

✓ Water jet cutting is most effective with harder sheet
materials, including leather and plastic.
✓ A marker plan is made in which the pattern pieces are
planned on to the hide; the hide is then cut automatically, in a
single layer, by water jet.
✓ Capital costs are high and it is difficult to see such systems
being taken up by the many small companies.
 Methods of Cutting Cont’d

Ultrasonic Cutting
✓ More recently developed are cutting systems that use an
ultrasonically driven knife blade.
✓ Vibration frequencies in the 20 kHz range produce 1/20 mm
movement in the blade, small enough to remove the need for
a bristle base to the cutting table.
✓ Disposable knife blades save sharpening time and last for 10
to 14 days.
✓ Single ply and very low lays can be cut and low vacuum only
is needed. Materials such as- Rubber, Piping, Frozen meat,
Candy, Jewelry, Print circuit boards, Plastic, Natural and
synthetic fabric.
 Preparation of Cut Work for the Sewing Room

Preparation of cut work for the sewing room

Some preparatory activities are contemporaneous with cutting,
for example notching and drill marking to assist the sewing
operation. The most important preparatory activities are-
1. Bundling
2. Controlling shade separation
3. Indicating the right side of the fabrics, and
4. Work ticketing
 Preparation of Cut Work for the Sewing room
Cont’d
Bundling
Many sewing rooms use the bundle system, whereby small batches of
garments move from one workstation to another in a controlled way.
✓ Batches may all be the same size: ten units, one dozen, two dozen,
etc. or they may vary depending on the way the fabric has been
spread.
✓ The task of work preparation is to split the lay (of say 100plies) into
smaller batches in a controlled way.
✓ In order to prepare the cut work, it is necessary for operators to be
able to identify each stack.
✓ Many western companies use teamwork systems that eliminate the
bundle.
 Preparation of Cut Work for the Sewing room
Cont’d
Shade Separation Control
✓ Within the batch of fabric cut, there are likely to be shade
differences. Some cutting rooms shade-separate by inserting
tissue paper between every piece.
✓ Others group pieces into batches that have a uniform shade,
and instead of say ten shades in the lay, they have only two or
three.
✓ It might be thought that the answer is to avoid the need to
shade- separate by first identifying the top ply of the bundle
and then working systematically through the batch.
 Preparation of Cut Work for the Sewing room
Cont’d
Shade Separation Control
✓ This is, of course, easy to do with the unit production systems,
but the bundle system is not a good way of retaining this level
of order.
✓ Although maintaining the stack sequence is possible, many
companies have found that the risks are too high.
✓ With quality outerwear garments, it is quite common to give
every garment piece a pressure-sensitive adhesive ticket with
a ply number.
 Preparation of Cut Work for the Sewing room
Cont’d
Indication of the Right Side of Fabrics
✓ Some fabrics have an obvious difference between the front
and the back. Other fabrics are identical on both sides, and
again there is no problem.
✓ The need for right side identification comes where there is a
close similarity between the face and the back of fabrics, and
when it is important for the fabric face to be on the outside of
the garment.
✓ For example, the face may be intentionally slightly glazed, but
this cannot be seen easily under factory lighting conditions.
Another example relates to some double jersey knitted
fabrics.
 Preparation of Cut Work for the Sewing room
Cont’d
Indication of the Right Side of Fabrics
✓ Right side identification may use soabar tickets, whereby the
Cutting ply number is always positioned on the fabric face.
✓ Alternatively, an adhesive label is placed on the face of the
top ply of a stack, and the machinist then places the stack
with the top ply uppermost.
✓ The operator can then work through the stack without having
to inspect each piece.
✓ The latter method does require operators to handle bundles
carefully and to ensure the sequencing of plies is not
disrupted.
 Preparation of Cut Work for the Sewing room
Cont’d
Work ticketing
Wherever bundles are used, they are accompanied by work
tickets. Tickets provide basic information about the work:
• Style number,
• Size of the garment
• Number of garments in the bundle
• Date issued
Work tickets are generally created on site once the outcome of
spreading/cutting is known. Computerized management
information systems have well-established routines to print the
required tickets, which are then linked up with the bundled
work.