Cutting Room Management

Cutting room management typically refers to the process of managing and

overseeing the operations of a cutting room in industries such as
manufacturing, textiles, and fashion. The cutting room is where raw materials,
such as fabric or materials, are cut into specific shapes and sizes to be used in
the production of various products.

Key aspects of cutting room management may include:

Material Inventory: Managing and tracking the inventory of raw materials to

ensure there are enough supplies for production.

Pattern and Marker Making: Creating patterns and markers that optimize
material usage and minimize waste during the cutting process.

Cutting Process: Supervising the cutting of materials according to the patterns

and ensuring accuracy in size and shape.

Quality Control: Inspecting the cut pieces to ensure they meet quality
standards and identifying and rectifying any defects.

Production Planning: Coordinating the cutting room's schedule with the overall
production plan to meet production targets.

Equipment Maintenance: Ensuring that cutting equipment is well-maintained

and in good working condition.
Waste Reduction: Implementing strategies to minimize material waste and
improve efficiency in the cutting room.

Efficient cutting room management is crucial for reducing costs, improving

production quality, and ensuring that materials are used effectively in
manufacturing processes.

Cutting Machine
A cutting machine in the context of garments manufacturing is a piece of
equipment used to precisely cut fabric layers into specific patterns or shapes.
These machines are essential in the garment industry for ensuring accuracy
and efficiency in the cutting process. There are different types of cutting
machines, including:

Straight Knife Cutter: This machine uses a straight blade to cut single or
multiple layers of fabric. It is versatile and suitable for various fabric types.

Round Knife Cutter: It features a circular blade that can cut fabric smoothly,
making it useful for curves and intricate shapes.

Band Knife Cutter: This machine uses a long, narrow blade to cut intricate
patterns and is often used for cutting sleeves, collars, and other detailed
garment parts.

Die Cutting Machine: It employs custom dies or templates to cut fabrics into
specific shapes, often used for mass production of identical pieces.
Laser Cutting Machine: Laser technology is used to precisely cut fabric,
especially useful for delicate or intricate designs.

These cutting machines help streamline the manufacturing process, reduce

material waste, and ensure uniformity in garment production. They are
typically operated by skilled technicians who input the desired patterns or
designs into the machine's computer system for precise cutting.

Flow Chat

Cutting Machine

Straight Knife Round Knife Band Knife

Notcher cutting
Die Cutting Laser Beam
machine
Straight Knife: The Straight Knife or "Up and Down" (Vertical Knife) is a
machine with a straight vertical blade. Straight knives are available from 3" to
14" tall, capable of cutting lays from 2 ½" to 13 ½" in height. Depending on the
density of the fabric, this may represent a wide range of plies. When
encountering notches, the straight knife may be used to cut notches by
pushing the blade into the notch mark on the patterns above each bundle.
Features of Straight Knife:

 Possible to cut pattern pieces directly from the fabric lays.

 Could be used to cut for higher depth of fabric.

 Higher cutting speed.

 Sharp & heavy corners can be cut.

 Blade could be sharpened by attaching grinding facilities.

 Blade height: 10 to 33 cm

 Blade Stoke: 2.5 cm to 4.5 cm

 Auto lubricating unit works for this machine.

 A handle for the cutter to direct the knife.

Advantage of straight knife:

 Comparatively cheap.

 Can be easily transferred from one place to another place.

 Round corners can be cut more precisely than even round knife.

 High production speed.

 Automatically lubrication.

 Suitable for straight line & curve line.

 Garment components can directly be separated from fabric lays.

 Fabric can be cut from any angle.

 Can be moved easily by wheel.

Disadvantages of Straight Knife:

 Sometimes deflecting may occur due to the weight of the motor.

 Knife deflection is high in risk, when any height is too high.

 Sometimes accident may happen.

 Faulty knife could damage fabric layer.

 Knife requires replacing.

 High speed of the machine causes high risk of damage.

Round Knife:
 Knife is lubricating manually.

 Three types of knife edge can be used for cutting different objects. Such as:
waved edge, toothed edge & circular edge.

 A round knife rotating so that the leading edge cuts downwards into the
fabric.

 Flexible movement helps to cut nonlinear shape.

 Base plate gives support for fabric.

 Manual grinder is used.

 Knife diameter varies from 6 to 20cm.

 Motor r.p.m. is 800 to 1600. It depends on machine.

 Easy to handle & movement due to low weight.

 A handle for the cutter to direct the knife.

 Flexible movement helps to cut nonlinear shape.

 Maximum 40% of the knife diameter can be used for fabric lay.
Advantage of Round Knife:
 Suitable for cutting single ply as well as multilayer (say 20-30 layers)

 Easy to handle & operate

 Suitable for small scale cutting

 Suitable for gentle curve line cutting

 To cut the large part of the garments.

 Its efficiency is 10 times greater than the straight knife.

Disadvantage of Round Knife:

 Not suitable for cutting very curved lines in higher number of lays as the
blade does not strike all the plies simultaneously at the same time.

 Round knife is used for straight lines & lower number of plies.

 Not possible for higher production.

 Possibility of accident is high.

 Difficult to cut small components.

 Need skilled operator.

 Lubrication is manually done.

Band Knife:
 A band knife comprises a series of three or more pulleys, powered by an
electric motor with continuous rotating steel blade mounted on them.

 The principle of operation is different from the straight or a round knife on

band knife. It passes in a fixed position and the selection of lay to be is moved
past it.

 Cutting knife is endless in shape and flexible.

 Knife is usually narrower than on a straight knife.

 Required a large space for it.

 High speed r.p.m. motor is used.

 Knife life time depends on fabric type & uses of machine.

 A blade is usually narrower than on a straight knife.

Advantage of band knife:  Band knife are used when a higher standard of
cutting accuracy is required.

 Extensively used to cut very sharp corners small parts such as collars and
cuff.

 Band knife is used more in men’s wear than ladies wear and often used to
cut large garments parts such as large panels of jackets and overcoats.

 Intensively risk of accident is low

 Possible to cut in 90-degree angle of the fabric.

 Very large productivity for limited product.

 Automatic grinder is used.

Disadvantages of band knife:

 Work load is high as machine is stationary and fabric is movable.

 It is not suitable for cutting large amount of garments parts.

 Not possible to cut fabric directly.

 Running cost is higher.

 Fabric wastages are very high because block pieces of fabrics are required.

 Power loss is high.

 Require fixed space.

Features of Die Cutting:

 Mainly two types of die cutting are available namely Clickers and Presses.
 The main parts of all of die cutting machine are blade, ram head, die, motor,
and operating system of ram and the controlling of ram height.

 Die cutting method is most useful to cut sharp and small parts. For getting
good result it must be needed to control the pressure of ram head.

Advantages of Die Cutting:

 Extensively used to cut the sharp corners of small parts of dress accurately.

 Most useful to cut at any shape or any angle.

 Comparatively less time required.

 Best method of cutting knitted fabric.

Disadvantages of Die Cutting:

 Fabric loss is high due to the need of block of fabric lay.

 High labor cost.

Features of Laser Beam:

 In this method, the fabric is cut by a ray of light in a very fine spot by using a
laser.

 The radius of spot of light is 0.25 mm and high powerful.

 When the ray falls on the material, it generates heat on the material &
cutting is done by vaporization.

 The fabric is cut at a speed of 13 meter per min.

 The cutting head is controlled by computer.

Advantage of Laser Beam:

 Very fast cutting operation i.e. it can be cut 13m per min.

 It can be cut in a proper line as the cutting head is controlled by computer.

 As the fabric is cut by ray off high so that no need of sharpening operation.
Disadvantage of Laser Beam:
 Not suitable for cutting of multilayer of fabric.

 For thermoplastic fabric the cutting edge should be fused.

 Very expensive cutting method.

Features of Notcher cutting machine:

 It is special type of cutting machine and used in special case.

 There is need to cut notch in the edge of some components. As a result,

when sewn is done it is easy to join parts by matching according to the place of
parts. This notch can be made by straight knife or other cutting knife machine
but the consistency of cutting of notch is depending on the skill of operator.

 The inventory of notcher machine was done to make notch and a special
guide to make consistency in notching. The notch can be made in U-shape or
V-shape.

Advantage of Notcher cutting machine:

 It is special type of cutting machine and used in special case.

 Useful to cut small notch to the fabric.

 It is most useful to make consistency in notching.

Disadvantage of Notcher cutting machine:

 Only used to make notch to the fabric.

 Thermoplastic fiber cannot cut by this machine.

 Time loss.

 The use of this machine is limited.