The fabric ran out with 80 pieces to cut
The costing said 1.42 metres per garment. The marker from Gerber AccuMark agreed. The order was 1,200 units in three colours, and the fabric was booked with a small allowance. Then the navy ran short on the last lay, and a quick count showed the cutting room had used noticeably more per garment than the marker. Nobody could say where it went.
The spreaders were working hard. Some rolls were shorter than the ticket. A few had faults that had to be cut out. Lay ends were longer than they needed to be on one table. Each of those is small. Together, on every order, they are your margin.
Why the gap goes unseen
The marker gives a theoretical consumption. What the cutting room does is recorded, if at all, as a total fabric issue from the store. There is nothing in between that says which lay used what.
- Roll lengths are taken from the supplier's ticket, not measured at receipt.
- Lay lengths, plies and end losses are not written down per lay.
- Remnants go back to the store without being weighed or measured.
- Splicing and fault cut-outs are not counted.
- Consumption is only checked at the end of an order, when it is too late to act.
What drifting consumption does
On a CMT order where the brand supplies the fabric, running short means asking them for more and explaining why, which damages trust. On full package orders, it means buying more fabric at short notice, possibly from a different dye lot, and paying for it out of a margin that was costed on the marker. Either way, the cutting room gets blamed without anyone having the figures to show whether the problem was the rolls, the spreading or the marker.
A cutting log that follows each roll
- At receipt, rolls get a label and their measured length and width are recorded against the supplier's ticket. Differences are flagged for the fabric buyer.
- When a lay is planned, the marker length, plies and expected consumption are taken from your marker file or entered by the cutter.
- Spreaders record which rolls went into each lay, the actual lay length, plies achieved and the remnant left, on a tablet at the table. It takes a few taps per roll.
- Fault cut-outs and splices are recorded with a reason, so poor fabric shows up separately from spreading loss.
- Remnants go back to the store with a length, and appear as usable stock for small cuts and samples.
- A report compares marker consumption with actual consumption per lay, per style and per fabric, updated as cutting happens rather than when the order is finished.
| Loss | Visible today? | Visible in the log |
|---|---|---|
| Short rolls | Rarely | At receipt, per roll |
| Lay end allowance | No | Per lay, per table |
| Fabric faults | Anecdotally | Recorded with reason |
| Remnants | Piled in a corner | Measured stock |
| Total over marker | At the end of the order | As each lay is cut |
We work with the marker output you already have, whether that comes from Gerber, Lectra or a manual marker. We do not replace your CAD.
After the log is running
When a colour looks like running short, the cutting manager knows by the second or third lay, while there is still time to adjust. A conversation with a fabric supplier about short rolls comes with a list. A conversation with the brand about consumption comes with lay records. And the owner can see which fabrics consistently cut over marker, which feeds the next costing.
Is your cutting room here?
- You have run short of fabric on orders you booked with an allowance.
- Consumption is only checked once an order is finished.
- Roll lengths are never measured at receipt.
- Remnants pile up with no record of what they are.
- You cannot tell whether overuse came from the fabric or the spreading.