Why Material Utilization Has Become a Key Manufacturing KPI

Material utilization is a simple idea: how much of the material you buy ends up being used for useful parts.

If a manufacturer buys a sheet and only a portion of it becomes finished components, the rest may become scrap or remain as an offcut for another job.

The goal is not always to use every last square millimetre of material. There are cutting restrictions, part spacing, heat considerations and production requirements to think about. But a well-planned job can often make better use of the available sheet.

For a small production job, a little unused material may not seem important.

But multiply that across hundreds or thousands of sheets and the numbers can become significant.

This is why manufacturers are increasingly looking beyond traditional production measures such as machine time and output. Material utilization can provide another useful view of how efficiently a production process is operating.

One of the biggest opportunities to improve material utilization comes before the cutting machine even starts.

The way parts are arranged on a sheet can determine how much material is left over after the job is complete. Manually arranging a few parts may be easy, but larger production orders can quickly become difficult to manage.

This is where sheet metal nesting software can help.

Automatic nesting can evaluate different part arrangements and create a layout that aims to make better use of the available sheet.

Material utilization is not just about choosing the lowest-cost sheet.

Sheet size, thickness, material type and the number of parts required all affect the final result.

For example, choosing a larger sheet might appear more expensive at first, but if it allows the required parts to be nested more efficiently, the overall material cost per part could be more attractive.

This is why material optimization needs to be considered at the job level rather than simply looking at the purchase price of a single sheet.

A leftover piece of sheet is not automatically scrap.

If the remaining material is large enough and in a suitable shape, it may be useful for a future job. Keeping track of these remnants can help manufacturers avoid using a new full sheet when an existing piece can do the job.

This is where remnant management software can become useful, particularly for job shops handling many different materials and part sizes.

Bullet points

A good nesting layout does not automatically mean it is the best production layout.

The machine also has to cut the job efficiently.

A layout that saves a little material but takes considerably longer to cut may not be the best choice. Cutting sequence, rapid movements, common cutting and other machine-specific factors can also influence production time.

That is why material utilization should be considered alongside other manufacturing KPIs.