What is Fabric Cutting, and How Does It Work?

Fabric cutting is the first phase in the garment production process; it is the process of breaking a spread into garment sections that are the exact size and shape of the pattern pieces on a marker (by sectioning, bending, and cutting). Before precision cutting of individual pattern forms, marks and notches from garment parts are often transferred to enable operators in stitching, chopping, or sectioning a spread into blocks of separate items. This makes fabric pattern matching more precise or cutting knife production easier.

Avoid Making These Errors

When it comes to garment manufacturing challenges, they come in various shapes and sizes, and they all impact production efficiency, quality, and on-time delivery.

Every factory and manufacturing company has its own set of issues. An issue is not always possible to solve. A new one appears in various forms and approaches even after one problem is solved.

Problems aren't necessarily awful, but understanding them can help to gain the necessary skills to cope with them properly. Most issues arise, impacting line productivity, performance, product quality, and timely delivery. 

Understanding the difficulties allows the company to strive toward a better solution that avoids current issues. Here are some of the challenges that many manufacturing companies face. 

Separating garment components from a fabric sheet is known as fabric cutting. To tackle fabric cutting problems, one must first understand the mistake pattern. As a result, begin by examining common faults before seeking remedies. To figure out the pattern of the mistakes, ask the following questions.

Is the error due to carelessness on the part of the employees? Is it due to a defect in the design of the process? Is it the product of an unforeseeable circumstance? Is the fabric cutting crew unable to complete certain jobs because of a lack of expertise and knowledge?

The following is a shortlist of common fabric cutting errors.

Common cutting errors:

1. Improper patterns: Patterns are not modified in response to fabric shrinkage reports, and FIT comments are not integrated into manufacturing patterns. This type of error is common when there is no regular protocol for pattern marking and pattern transfer to the cutting department. This type of error can also occur due to careless cutting workers or a lack of understanding of patterns and their implications on output.

2. Incorrect size ratio cutting: This could be the result of negligence on the part of the workers.

3. Fabric obtained without prior quality inspection or clearance based on test results: This is due to the cutting department's failure to follow conventional fabric issuance procedures. Shade bands for materials with shade variation are not made.

4. No notch mark: The pattern does not include a notch mark in the intended location, or there is a notch mark in the pattern, but the cutter fails to cut notches in the fabric lay. This could be the result of carelessness on the part of personnel.

5. Numbering errors: Workers are either inexperienced or careless in their work.

6. Following the incorrect cutting plan: When the cutting department does not work according to the daily cutting plan, the cutting plan may not match the requirements of the sewing department. However, a change in the production plan may not be conveyed to the person in charge of cutting.

7. Delay in Production Start: The production planning department may plan the schedules on time, but the fabrics may not get delivered by the scheduled cutting date. The lines are ready with machinery and workers, but the cutting departments can take longer to cut, and the supervisors receive supplies late, causing production delays.

8. Setting up a long line: Due to bad prior line setting, the time it takes to set the timeline increases.

9. High lost time: Due to a variety of factors, machine operators waste some crucial hours. The cause could be a lack of departmental coordination, a preceding process that was not completed on time, a feeding scarcity, or other quality difficulties.

10. Production Planning Changes Frequently: When a production plan is obtained, and work is underway, the production department loads a style to the line and then receives fresh instructions to stop the current style and start with a new style. This causes a delay in the production process and breaks the production time.

11. Lack of information: After receiving the meeting's specifics, the production department is not given the exact details. Due to the strain of meeting delivery deadlines, mass production begins before the order's entire needs are known.

12. Cutting flaws in the garment: Following the marking lines incorrectly results in deformed garment sections. If the straight knife is allowed to slant or a round knife is used on a spread that is too wide, the top and bottom plies can be of different sizes. Misplaced, too deep, too shallow, tilted, deleted, or the inappropriate sort of notch for the cloth drill marks that are misaligned, the inappropriate drill for the cloth, omitted, and the spread is not perpendicular. A malfunctioning knife, not sharp enough or rotating at too fast a speed, can result in frayed, burned, or fused edges. 

13. Overcutting the piece: Careless knife use may have caused damage to the garment portion, which may have resulted in overcutting the previous piece. The marker was placed inappropriately on top of the spread. Parts of the garment are missing at the lay's edge. Parts of the garment are distorted if they are too tight or too loose. Slits were either opened incorrectly or not at all.

Before looking for a solution, research the issue and understand frequent garment production issues.

The errors listed above are some of the most common in the cutting department, although they are not the only ones. Other types of errors could exist. 

Solutions to Consider:

The following are some possible solutions to the mentioned errors.

1. Dealing with faults in patterns

Before sending a pattern to the cutting department, keep a checkpoint for inspecting garment patterns. Before mass cutting, one can create a handful of samples based on the production pattern. Refer to this process of cutting cloth with patterns --> sewing garments -->, finishing garments, and inspecting quality. If there is any variance in the finished clothes, fix it before bulk cutting.

Stuff like measurement issues and fit problems in bulk production if prepared pre-production (PP) samples and checked according to buyer specifications.

Other precautions that should be considered about patterns are as follows:

• The pattern components should be numbered.
• Patterns should clearly state whether the cloth is to be cut in folded or open width.
• How many components should be cut from a single pattern piece to a single piece? For example, four components must be cut for shirt cuff patterns, with the cutting department receiving one cuff pattern piece. 

Sometimes the issue isn't with the patterns but with the cutting department's use of the wrong/old pattern. Set a regular procedure for the pattern master to seal and approve each completed design. Write the style number (article number) and the component name on the pattern. Cutting departments should not be permitted to employ any design other than that approved for a specific style and season.

2. Managing the entire cutting process

The answer is a pilot production run. Before mass cutting, a pilot run is a good option. Following this procedure, any issues that arise during the cutting process, whether fabric or pattern issues, will be revealed in the pilot run pieces. This technique may result in some fabric loss, but not the entire cloth.

3. Cutting flaws or errors

Setting quality piece components helps eliminate any cutting defects. Check out the activities of sorting and bundling as well. Possibilities for size and ply combination, for example.

4. Sticking to the Cut Plan

Cut planning is done in a variety of ways by different companies. Most organizations provide weekly cutting schedules to the cutting department, and if there are any modifications to the existing plan, the cutting department receives an updated plan. There may still be a communication gap between the editing and production departments. This type of problem can be avoided by holding a regular morning meeting amongst the factory's primary production departments.

Conclusion

Fabric Cutting activities can be eased by following a regular procedure. If not done already, create a standard operating procedure (SOP) for cutting room activities and ensure that everyone in the cutting department follows it. Set standard procedures for the fabric department and the sampling and pattern-producing departments to make them even more error-proof.

Share the procedures for dealing with mistakes made in the cutting room; that would be fantastic. For more such interesting topics and the latest fashion trends, visit Fashinza.