One of the main concerns of any business that wants to compete in the competitive modern market is to
reduce its manufacturing costs. This can be best attained by adopting a sophisticated nesting service in
your manufacturing procedure. This blog post discusses the functionality of such a complex nesting
technology, why it results in high cost savings, and how both big and small manufacturers can benefit by
opting for this move.
What Is An Advanced Nesting Service?
Advanced nesting service is a kind of software system that provides an optimal effort to the layout of parts
that will be cut out of the raw materials metal, wood, glass, or fabric. Nesting software can automatically
find the most efficient arrangement of parts, as compared to arranging them manually, which is slow and
prone to error. The nesting service assists manufacturers by creating a strict parts inventory to save on
materials and reduce waste, and increase throughput.
Optimizing The Materials Usage
The enhanced usage of materials is among the main advantages of high-tech nesting. All of the wastage
is an unwanted expense, and the less effectively you can utilize your raw material means the less money
you will save. Nesting software follows complex algorithms in order to make sure the parts are organized
in a manner that results in minimal scraps. This may mean a few percentage points of material savings to
many manufacturers – even 5-10%.
Cost-saving in materials directly affects the profitability, particularly when there is a fluctuation in the raw
material prices. In the long run, a constant increase in the yield rate implies that the amount of waste is
reduced to recycling or the landfill, and the amount of money allocated to purchasing materials necessary
to create the same volume of work gets smaller.
Increased And Quicker Production
Nesting software also enhances speed and uniformity of production, besides material saving. Manual part
layout may consume hours, particularly in complicated projects. Through nesting software, this task is
automated, and manual layout is not required, as it does not lead to human error. This allows firms to
manufacture more parts within a shorter period of time, and the time taken to satisfy a customer decreases
as well.
By complex automation, employees will be able to concentrate on more valuable activities, as opposed to
wasting time on manual layout planning, which is time-consuming. Not only does this shift create
productivity, but it can also reduce labor expenses, as manual work will be minimized in terms of time spent
on it.
Scrap And Waste Disposal Costs Reduction
All manufacturing processes are concerned with scrap, yet excess scrap is expensive. In the case of
advanced nesting, waste is greatly reused not only due to smaller packing of parts but also due to the ability
of the software to reuse the previous scrap remnants in upcoming tasks. This ultimately causes a decrease
in the cost of raw materials as well as the cost of disposing of or recycling waste products.
The more sophisticated nesting services like CAMworks Nesting can even be linked to the inventory
management system to trace and re-use the remaining pieces, which leads to an even better efficiency and
saves the necessity to buy new raw materials.
Higher Throughput And Productivity Of Machines
This can also be enhanced by a powerful nesting service to enhance overall equipment effectiveness
(OEE), which can be achieved by making sure that machines dedicate more time to cutting and less time
waiting until layouts have been prepared. Indicatively, machine time has been cut by more than 10% due
to increased nesting and motion optimization by some companies. Increased throughput not only enhances
productivity but also enhances the capacity of the manufacturer to deliver on time and receive more orders.
Lower Labor And Setup Costs
The state-of-the-art software ensures that the entire nesting process is automated, and this saves labor
and hours that the company would have employed highly skilled people to arrange the parts manually. This
makes labor costs less and enables competent engineers and machine operators to concentrate on other
production priorities. Moreover, setup times are decreased as workers do not have to interrupt as much to
restart machines, which results in further cost reduction, as well as the number of necessary stop and reset
operations of machines is reduced, thus saving more money.
Faultless Interconnection With The Production Systems
The Solidworks Cam Service software is modern and is aimed at working with CAD, CAM, and ERP
systems in place. Regardless of what equipment is used: plasma cutters, lasers, routers, or others, the
appropriate nesting software can automatically supply design files and material data, and the production
process becomes more efficient, and the risk of error caused by manual data input is minimized.
This integration is important to manufacturers who have several machines or intricate workflows, to enable
every part of the production process to flow smoothly. It is possible to schedule orders in a more precise
way and identify and solve production bottlenecks much faster.
Multi-Order And Remnant Nesting To Get Even More Savings
The next level is advanced nesting services, which provide such features as multi-order nesting – parts of
multiple work orders are nested together into one nest – and remnant nesting, which recycles unused
materials effectively. These characteristics result in further savings as the utilization of materials used on
every task is maximized, as opposed to each order being treated as a different case, as was before.
Real Life Savings Example
Take the example of a metal fabrication shop that used to analyze all the parts manually. Once they had
switched to an advanced nesting service, their scrap rate decreased by 7 percent, and their machine set
up times became almost 15 percent less; and half the labor spent on layout was realized. All this saved
money equated to a considerable decrease in the total cost of manufacturing quality products.
Getting Started With Advanced Nesting
These are the action steps to initiate cost reduction in the manufacturing cost:
➔ Examine your present degree of waste and handwork in the apportionment of parts.
➔ Establish nesting solutions that are associated with your existing machine(s) and software.
➔ Conduct pilot projects on which to compare on savings of material and the improvement of the
process.
➔ The nesting service can be established as part of your routine workflows by training your team.
Conclusion
One of the quickest and simplest means of reducing the costs of manufacturing is implementing an
advanced nesting service. With the material waste reduction, labor and setup reduction, and maximum
machine efficiency, nesting solutions are worth their money, even in the small and mid-sized shops.
Advanced nesting technology is an effective means of creating a leaner competitive operation in the market
where even a one percent variance of savings can count. Keyways offers you advanced nesting service to
help ease your manufacturing process by cutting costs. For more information on services, visit our LinkedIn.