Optimised cut lists and panel optimisation Nine sheets or eleven.
A cut list turns a set of drawings into a set of parts. Optimisation is the difference between getting those parts from nine sheets and getting them from eleven. Across one package that is a rounding error. Across a repeating programme it is not.
What the deliverable contains
- Every part identified
- With the assembly it belongs to.
- Finished dimensions
- With the allowances your process requires, not nominal dimensions.
- Material specification per part
- Type, thickness, face and core.
- Grain direction
- Wherever it is constrained.
- Edge treatment per edge
- Not per part.
- Machining requirements
- That affect the cutting stage.
- Part labels
- To your convention, so the label on the panel matches the label on the drawing.
What optimisation actually optimises
- Sheet yield. Fewer sheets consumed for the same parts. The headline benefit and the easiest to measure.
- Offcut usability. Two layouts can consume the same number of sheets and leave completely different remnants. A layout that leaves usable offcuts is worth more than one that leaves strips, and a yield figure alone will not show you that.
- Grain compliance. Where grain direction is constrained, achievable yield falls. Optimising while respecting the constraint is harder than optimising without it, and ignoring the constraint produces a beautiful layout and an unbuildable item.
- Cutting sequence practicality. A theoretically optimal layout that requires impractical handling is not optimal on the floor. Someone has to lift those parts.
Why your parameters are not optional
Optimisation without your real material sizes is arithmetic performed on the wrong numbers.
If your shop stocks a size we assumed you did not, or does not stock one we assumed you did, the output is worse than an unoptimised list, because it arrives looking authoritative.
Before production begins we need your stocked sheet and board sizes by material, your kerf and trim allowances, your edge banding allowance and its dimensional effect, and any grain or directional constraints. This is a hard requirement, not a preference. Where those are not available, we say so rather than issuing something that looks right and cuts wrong.
What this is not
This is part data and sheet layout. It is not toolpath, it is not tooling selection, and it is not machine code.
Converting a layout into instructions for a specific machine, with its controller, its tooling library and its post-processor, is machine integration work. It stays with your programmer or your integrator, and that is a permanent position rather than a capability being built toward.
Ask any supplier offering to write code for a machine they have never seen how they intend to test it.
Who this suits
Shops where material cost is a controllable line rather than a fixed one. Manufacturers running repeat programmes where yield compounds across the year. Operations where the programmer, not the machine, is the constraint on utilisation.
Selected work
Cut lists, optimised against real sheets
Optimisation without real material sizes is arithmetic on the wrong numbers.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you work in our software or your own?
Where you run a platform such as Microvellum or Cabinet Vision, the work happens inside it. Otherwise output is produced in the format you specify.
Can you optimise across multiple jobs?
Where the material and the timing allow, batching across jobs improves yield. Whether that suits your scheduling is your decision, not ours.
What yield improvement should we expect?
That depends entirely on your current process, your part mix and your material constraints. We do not quote a figure, because a figure quoted without knowing your baseline would be invented.
What if we do not know our own parameters?
That is common, particularly where the person who set the machine up has left. Establishing them properly is a separate piece of work and it should happen before anyone optimises anything.
Book a production readiness audit
Establish the parameters first. Compare the output against your current process.
- Optimisation run only against real stocked sheet and board sizes
- No yield figure quoted without a known baseline
- Grain constraints respected, never overridden for a better-looking layout
- One named contact, not a general queue
Book a Production Readiness Audit
See Cut Lists & CNC-Ready Production Data · See a Sample Set
Project enquiry
Scope and questions come back, not a template.
