In the sewn-product industry, product development can have a rapid-iteration phase that would be familiar to anyone in hardware or software development. Whether it’s testing the fit and strength of a new backpack or checking the fit and appearance of a garment on the fit model, a single prototype at a time may be made and revised weekly, daily, or even more often.
In the garment industry, “made to measure” refers to clothing whose pattern is made from measurements of the individual wearer and then either drafted algorithmically or pieced together from library parts for each possible value of each collected measurement.
In product development and in made-to-measure production, a number of factors of fabric cutting are different than in mass production:
- The manufacturer or producer may be making a single quantity, certainly only a small quantity.
- The manufacturer or producer is unlikely to be making multiple sizes at the same time.
- The above factors rule out the long markers used in mass production.
- The above factors rule out lay-ups of many plies of fabric.
- The manufacturer or producer may not even have a marker — pattern pieces might be hand-drafted and on separate pieces of paper or oaktag (card stock).
I can’t speak definitely about every possible cutting scenario in product development and made-to-measure production, but I can cover common cases.
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