Innovative approaches to optimized cutting planning in the garment industry

The garment industry is responsible for large amounts of waste. The current line of making the industry sustainable imposes rethinking of all stages, from design to assembling. The research starts from the observation that the optimization of the cutting plan is resourceful regarding the reduction of waste. The paper proposes an original software dedicated to the planning of cutting. The markers for a given product, onto which are arranged one to four sizes are characterized by four parameters: coefficient of utility of fabric, total length of the fabric, number of layers and length of the marker. The use of the software is demonstrated for the product coat, to which the best marker is established. Numerical results show how variable the coefficient of utility can be, thus how important is the optimization of markers before cutting the fabric. For the product coat, whose patterns are long (the dimension along the length of the fabric is significantly bigger than the dimension along the width) the utility coefficient is optimized from 57% to 78%. Several observations (applying to all markers) are noticed regarding the shape of the patterns and the number of sizes on a marker. The software should be of interest to companies which assemble garment pieces. The mathematical model and logic applied within the software are validated using an experimental study on the product's dress and coat, to which the practical coefficients of utility are 75% and 87% respectively.