NESTING

Nesting refers to the process of efficiently manufacturing parts from flat raw material.

Image 1: Simple rectangular nesting

Image 2: Improved Nesting with rotated parts

Image 3: Minimizing waste by mixing different parts

Companies manufacturing parts from flat raw material such as sheet metal use a variety of
technologies to perform this task. The sheet metal nesting for flat sheets and nesting for coils
are different algorithms. Material may be cut using off-line blanking dies, lasers, plasma,
punches, shear blades, ultrasonic knives and even water jet cutters.

In order to minimize the amount of scrap raw material produced by this process, companies use
nesting software. The software analyses the parts (shapes) to be produced at a particular time.

Using proprietary algorithms, it then determines how to lay these parts out in such a way as to
produce the required quantities of parts, while minimizing the amount of raw material wasted.
A number of off-the-shelf nesting software address the optimization needs. While some cater to
only rectangular nesting others also offer profile or shape nesting where the parts required can
be any odd shape and not just rectangles. These irregular parts can be created using popular
CAD tools. Most of the profile nesting software can read IGES or DXF profile files automatically,
a few of them work with built-in converters.

An important consideration in shape nesting is to verify that the software in question actually
performs true profile nesting and not just block nesting. In block nesting an imaginary rectangle
is drawn around the shape and then the rectangles are laid side-by side which actually is not
profile nesting. There still remains a scope for waste reduction

Nesting software must take into account the limitations and features of the machining
technology in use, such as:

 Machining cannot take place where the raw material is clamped into place;
 Some machines can access only half of the material at a particular time; the machine
automatically flips the sheet over to allow the remaining half to be accessed;
 When punching, the width of the punch tool must be considered;
 Shearing may be permitted only in certain areas of the sheet due to limitations of the
machinery;
 A laser can cut parts at any rotation; a punch can only do so at right angles;

Nesting software may also have to take into account material characteristics, such as:

 Defects on material that must be discarded;

 Different quality areas that must match corresponding quality levels required for different
parts;
 Direction constraints, that may come from a printed pattern or from fiber direction;

Many machine manufacturers offer their own custom nesting software designed to offer ease of
use and take full advantage of the features of their specific machines.

If a fabricator operates machines from more than one vendor, they may prefer to use an off-the-
shelf nesting package from a third-party vendor. They then have the potential to run jobs on any
available machine, and their staff should not have to learn several different software packages.
4 ways to optimize nesting

Sheet metal remnants (a usable piece of material remaining after parts are cut from the sheet,
often referred to as “drop”) are the bane of every programmer and shop’s existence. They are a
pain to inventory, difficult to handle because of their odd shape, and a constant reminder that
they need to be used or wasted.

This article offers some hope to the beleaguered programmer and operator. There are ways to
avoid having remnants in the first place, and if all else fails there are tools to help quickly
dispose of them with little effort.

Here we go.

How to Avoid Creating Sheet Metal Remnants

As we all know the best remnant is no remnant. In a perfect world all the parts would fill every
sheet completely, and we wouldn’t have to deal with this challenge. A zero-remnant reality may
not always be possible, but there are two strategies that help avoid creating remnants in the first
place.

1. Using Filler Parts to Manage Sheet Yield and Reduce Remnants

Filler parts are parts with a less than urgent priority. They are parts that can be made now but
are made from scrap or material that would be a remnant. There are three strategies commonly
used to manage filler parts.

Filler Part Strategy #1 – Part Inventory

Creating part inventories from scrap or remnant material is the first strategy for filler parts.

Sometimes manufacturers carry part inventories of stock items to reduce setup costs or order
response times. Alternatively, their production line may integrate a Kan-ban system, where part
orders are cued when the part “card” indicates a need to replenish the stock.

In either approach, these parts are ideal filler parts. When a nest has unused material, extra
space on the nest or material that would otherwise be a remnant can now be filled in with parts
that will be used for inventory without preventing urgent parts being produced first.

Intelligent nesting software will report back to the order or scheduling system the number of
parts created for each stock item. The scheduling system will then update the “quantity needed”
before any additional parts are ordered to avoid overproduction.

Filler Part Strategy #2 – Higher & Lesser Grade Materials

Many manufacturers use multiple grades of material; some more costly than others. In the case
of a manufacturer of industrial kitchen equipment, he may use brushed stainless steel for the
exterior, visible surfaces of the cabinets and a plain finished stainless for the unseen back
panels and interior parts. The brushed stainless is more expensive, but it has the same
structural properties as the plain finish, so it is more than adequate as a replacement (filler)
material for the plain finished stainless.

The second filler part strategy is to make good use of all of the higher grade material scrap
whenever possible. To do this the manufacturer can use the scrap or remnants of the higher
grade material to make parts that would otherwise be made of a lower grade stock by treating
them as filler parts for the higher grade stock. In the case of the kitchen equipment
manufacturer, he would make back panels and interior parts out of the brushed stainless – only
when the material would otherwise be a remnant or scrapped – to prevent the expensive
material from being wasted. At the end of the nesting process, the nesting software would know
how many of the secondary filler parts were and were not nested. It would return the remaining
quantity to their normal, not filler, order status on the plain material.

Expensive, high grade material destined for the scrap bin has been salvaged and made into
usable product components. And expensive, high grade material remnants have been avoided.

Filler Part Strategy 3 – Future Orders

Consider a nesting environment where the engineer wishes to produce all of the parts due today
only. In the case of batch nesting (creating a series of nests for multiple sheets of material from
one set of part orders), as nests are built, the number of parts remaining gets smaller and
smaller. Toward the end of this nesting process there will be fewer parts to nest and the nest
efficiency will decrease; this is known as tail-off. It’s also where remnants are created.

To increase the material efficiency, the programmer can allow the nesting software to look
ahead at tomorrow’s orders and treat them as filler parts. The nesting software will only include
the filler orders in locations in the nest where material would otherwise be scrapped, such as a
remnant. Today’s orders will be the priority and will be nested first, and tomorrow’s orders will fill
in the scrap areas. This strategy blends the end of today’s production with the beginning of
tomorrow’s production in a smooth and material efficient series of nests. And the opportunity for
remnants is minimized.

2. Using JIT (Just-in-Time) Nesting to Avoid Remnants

JIT Nesting is all about creating nests just as the machine that will produce the parts is ready for
them – just in time. The architecture behind this process is a never ending, always filling, real
time order bucket reflecting the most current production demand. As new orders come in they
fill the order bucket. As the machine (punch, laser, plasma, etc.) is ready to produce, the
nesting software empties the bucket. Orders and products are coming in and out in a constant
flow of production – meeting needs just-in-time.

How this helps minimize or avoid remnant production may not be self-evident. The secret is
constantly keeping the orders coming in so that there is never a tail-off of orders, which usually
creates a remnant.

JIT nesting in practice is similar to the Future Order Filler Part strategy when used with batch
nesting. The difference is the “future orders” for JIT nesting are the orders needed for the very
next nest. Whereas the “future orders” for batch nesting may be the 2nd shift production or
tomorrow’s orders. The window for “future” with JIT nesting is a very tight single machine cycle.
Therefore, each nest will have the advantage of pulling from the greatest pool of orders to
provide the optimal sheet material efficiency.

How to Optimize Sheet Metal Remnants

As mentioned earlier, it’s hard to imagine a zero-remnant world. So, in those cases where
remnants are inevitable, here are two strategies to best manage them and make the most of this
extra material.

3. Automatic Remnant Management

Advanced nesting software has the ability to automatically manage remnant creation, nesting,
and use for the programmers and machine operators. The process starts when a sheet is
identified by the software user as having sufficient material to create a remnant. The user can
tell the nesting software to then generate an electronic remnant with a straight edge cut or a
stepped-edge cut (see image above) to free it from the consumed, nested material. The
software then creates a unique material ID for storage among the material available to nest
on. When more parts are ordered the user or the software can “call down” the remnant by its
ID, nest parts on it and send the finished nest to the machine operator as normal.

With this approach remnants aren’t lost in the system and risk damage or being scrapped.

4. Irregular Remnant Management

Not every remnant can be squared-off to a rectangular or stepped-rectangular

shape. Sometimes there are irregular-shaped remnants that result from a very large, odd-
shaped part being extracted. In these circumstances, automatic nesting software can treat the
irregular shaped remnant in the same manner as a regular-shaped remnant by storing it,
labeling it, and retrieving it when needed for use. For more on irregular-shaped remnant
management, see this article.

In Conclusion…

There is no reason remnants should present the problem that they often do. There
are sizable material efficiency gains to be had with effective remnant management and the
application of dynamic nesting software.