How to Calculate Cutting SAM?

Topics: cutting, industrial engineering By: Prasanta Sarkar

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Question: How to calculate SMV in cutting section? ... asked by Mehfuzur Rahman
Please tell me how I can calculate SMV for cutting department. ... asked by
Ahmed Imtiaz

OCS's Answer:
Cutting SAM can be determined in the same way as you calculate stitching SAM of a
garment. In cutting SAM calculation, consider cutting room sub-processes such as
spreading, marking, cutting, fusing, re-laying, re-cutting, sorting, numbering and
bundling as operations. Whether you like to determine only cutting SAM or all other
processes also will depend on you. I have explained procedures for finding SAM for
all cutting processes.
Important thing, in cutting process determining SAM of a single piece has no
meaning when cutter cuts parts of multiple garments at a time. Whether cutter cuts
10 plies or 100 plies using straight knife machine cutting time will mostly remain
same. Primary variables in determining Cutting SAM are layer number in a lay,
number of markers in a lay.
To determine standard minutes for cutting jobs I suggest you to go for time study of
cutting operations, instead of using MTM2 database (synthetic data).
Determine SMV of each cutting tasks using the method explained in how to calculate
SAM of a garment
1. Do cycle time of Jobs (time study for 5 10 cycles)

2. Do performance rating ( Assess how fast or slow the operator doing the job in
1-100 scale)

3. Calculate Basic time (Basic time = cycle time X performance rating)

4. Add allowances (machine allowance + personal fatigue)

5. Calculate standard minutes (SAM = Basic time + Allowance percentages)

Spreading SAM
Conduct time study and measure cycle time for fabric spreading. Convert cycle time
into standard time. Spreading time will vary depending on layer length (and/or
number of markers) and type of fabric. To be specific record spreading SAM based on
lay length and fabric type. Also record number layer-man involved in layering. Once
you have standard minutes for spreading of a layer, you can easily calculate total
time required for spreading a lay by multiplying number of layers in a lay. Refer to
the following table to record spreading SAM.
Table 1: Spreading SAM record sheet
Sq. Style
no. No.

Fabric
type

Lay
Marker
length
size
(meters)

No. of
layer man

SAM/layer

#1
#2
Marker making SAM
Maker making required few minutes and compared to other cutting processes this
time is negligible. In case you need to determine marker making SAM and want to
add in total cutting SAM, I am showing you how to do it. If CAD marker is used then
do cycle time of lying of the paper maker on the lay and fixing the maker with gum
tape.
For manual marking determine standard time through time study. In manual marker
making time varies depending on garment components, garment size and number of
markers. Record the number of persons involved in marker making. Refer to the

following table to record marker making SAM values.

Table 2: Marker making SAM record sheet

Sq. Style
no. No.

Garment Marker
size
size

Total
components
/ size

SAM/lay No. of
marker
man

#1
#2

Cutting SAM
Conduct time study for cutting operation. Total cutting time of a lay will depends on
garment components, linear length to be cut for garment patterns, marker size and
type of fabric. Cutting time also depends on cutting equipments. Record time study
data in the following table. Study cutting time for all sizes in a lay and find average
SAM. Cover all sizes in time study. Create database of cutting SAM with different
combination of cutting for future use.
Table 2: Cutting SAM record sheet
Sq. Style Fabric
no. No. type

Marker Total
Lay
SAM/lay SAM /
size
components length
Garment
/ size
(meters)

#1
#2

Fusing SAM
Set temperature and pressure of the fusing machine for a certain speed of fusing
belt. You can do here reverse calculation. Instead of time study record operator
speed for placing cut components (to be fused) in a minute. Once you get production
per minute you can SAM per garment (based on number of fused components) by
using formula 1/no. of parts fused per minutes.
Re-cutting SAM
Re-cutting is also done by other equipment such as hand scissors or band knife
machine than straight knife cutting machine. Follow same procedures of determining

cutting SAM for re-cutting SAM. For re-cutting process SAM can be presented per lay
or per garment. Also consider whether all components need to re-cut or only few
components.
For the other cutting room processes like, Sorting, ticketing and bundling determine
SAM as per unit as mentioned in the following table.
Table 4: Units for presenting SAM of cutting processes

1
2

Operations
Spreading
Marker making

3
4
5

Cutting
Fusing
Re-cutting

6
7

Sorting
Numbering/
ticketing

Bundling

Units for cutting operation SAM

Calculate SAM per layer.
Manual marking: Calculate SAM for each
marker.
CAD marker: Calculate SAM per lay (Cut)
Calculate SAM per marker.
SAM per garment
Re-cutting SAM can be calculated based
on number of layers cutter cut.
Calculate SAM per marker
Numbering SAM can be calculated per
garment. For that first find SAM per
component and later multiply how
many components are numbered
Calculate Bundling SAM per marker

In the above tables you collect SAM of different processes in different units. All these
standard minutes will help you to determine cutting room capacity or you can
calculate how much capacity (standard minutes) you will be needed for an order.
Initially you need to collect standard time for all cuts to create a database. Once you
have created a database with different combination of lay length, marker size,
garment sizes you can use SAM from your database for future styles.