What is End Bits and End Loss in Cutting in Apparel Industry?

There are so many things and so many terms used in the apparel manufacturing process. End bits and end loss terminologies are associated with cutting section in a garment manufacturing plant.

While experts talk about fabric saving and improving cutting room performance, they focus on the losses as fabric waste.

You can increase savings from fabric by handling end bits intelligently and reducing end loss per ply.


What is End Bits?

Before cutting, a fabric roll is opened and laid on the cutting table. The lay length is set at a certain length (known as marker length). The fabric at the end of each roll which can’t be laid on the marker due to short length of the fabric ply is called as end bits. Remember it is not possible that you would get all rolls which length is multiple of marker length.

In an article, Roger Thomas of Methods Apparel Consultancy defined end bit as a piece of fabric that is longer than the length required to lay up one complete size.

Example: Suppose you got a fabric roll of 61 meters. Marker length is 5 meter. When you lay the fabric opening that roll after layering 12th layer you will have 1 meter fabric as end bit.

Also See: Cutting room terminologies

What is End loss?

While layering fabric on the cutting table, cutting allowance is taken at both ends of the ply. The allowance of fabric in length is called end loss. End loss can be also defined as length of fabric of a lay that doesn’t get covered by a marker.

By increasing marker length, fabric wastage due to end loss can be reduced. Mausmi Ambastha director of Threadsol mentioned in one article standard cut allowance is 2-4 cm per layer depending on the fabric and cutting equipment to be used.

Example: Assume that calculated marker length is 6 meters and you marked on the tables for layering plies taking 2 cm allowance at each end of the marker. So end loss per layer is 4 cm. If you have a lay of 100 plies, end loss will be equal to 400 cm (4 meters).

Prasanta Sarkar

Prasanta Sarkar is a textile engineer and a postgraduate in fashion technology from NIFT, New Delhi, India. He has authored 6 books in the field of garment manufacturing technology, garment business setup, and industrial engineering. He loves writing how-to guide articles in the fashion industry niche. He has been working in the apparel manufacturing industry since 2006. He has visited garment factories in many countries and implemented process improvement projects in numerous garment units in different continents including Asia, Europe, and South Africa. He is the founder and editor of the Online Clothing Study Blog.

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