Whether you are a newcomer or you are planning for setting up a garment manufacturing factory (workshop), you must know the workflow in the cutting room. It is often said that the cutting room is the heart of a garment unit. If you cut the fabric accurately (with the correct patterns), you can make the best quality garment with the best fit and measurements.
The main objective of a cutting room is cutting the fabric for garments and feeding cuttings to the stitching floor. To achieve this, the cutting department needs to follow a defined workflow, which is also called standard operating procedures.
Let us go through the workflow of a cutting room. I have considered a mid-size factory aimed for mass garment production to explain the workflow in brief.
Related: Functions of the Cutting department in the garment industry
Cutting Room Workflow
Workflow is shared by arrows.
Cutting Department receive production order details with cutting instruction for the specific order (Style-wise quantity and production schedule)
Cutting Department receives cut order plan from Planning depart (order qty, color-wise, size-wise cut quantity breakup).
(If they do not receive qty break-up, cutting manager do the cut order plan manually)
Cutting department raises fabric requisition slip based on the PO and gives it to the fabric store for issuing required fabrics and other materials (i.e., Lining, fusing).
Another side, the cutting department sends a request to the CAD department for the patterns for the style and order.
(If factory use printed marker (CAD system), no need of paper patterns)
Receiving of fabrics from the store as per requisition (with shade band and color combination)
On the cutting table, laying the paper patterns and measuring the marker length for fabric layering.
Check the fabric consumption prior to starting fabric layering with the marker length
(In case CAD marker is used, this step is avoided)
Get an approval of production average consumption (in case there is variation between planned consumption and actual consumption).
Verification of fabric shrinkage with fabric test report and Final patterns (with shrinkage or not)
Fabric spreading on the table (as per marker length). Spearing is done up to a certain height of the lay.
(if relaxation of fabric needed, the lay kept on the table for certain hours before marker making)
Marker making on the tops layer by using paper patterns and chalk marker (In case of the printed pattern, marker making not required. Just need to lay the CAD marker on the lay)
Spreading quality checking done by quality checker (for checking fabric facing, following edges)
Preparing layering report (Lay Report) after completing the spreading of a lay.
Cutting the lay following the maker lines using a straight knife cutting machine (or an auto-cutter)
Random checking of cutting quality during cutting is done by a quality checker and making a cutting quality report.
Taking out the cut blocks/garment panels from the lay to another table
Random checking of garment panels against paper pattern for different sizes (especially top layer, mid-layer, and bottom layer panels are checked for measurement)
Ply numbering of each ply and each component are done using a ply numbering machine
Shorting of cuttings by colour and size
Bundling of cut components following a standard bundle size
Attaching bundle Tag (labels) to each bundle with size. color, bundle qty.
Keeping the bundle ready for dispatch to the stitching section (for stitching job work). Cuttings are bagged in polybags or stored in Trollies/ on Racks
Recording of daily cutting production and bundling records and maintaining it in a logbook
Fusing of cut panels - an Optional process
(if fusing is required garment components are sent to fusing section)
During the production run, if the cutting department receives a request for part change of few garment components, cutting department cuts parts from the end bits or from the left-over fabrics.
After completion of cutting an order, reconciliation of the leftover fabrics and end bits are done. If the leftover fabric is high, they return the fabric to the fabric store.
Complete the cutting workflow of the order
Note: The cutting room workflow shared here is written based on my work experience in a garment export house and from the visits to many garment manufacturing units.
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