A month at that workload runs about 620 tonnes of panel steel through the nest. About two per cent less than a manual layout of the same list consumes — some 12 tonnes that stays in stock rather than going out as scrap. Past about 50 tonnes a batch the gap widens, as a person’s pairing falls away and the solver’s does not.
Go deeper · savings →Electroforged grating · nesting system ready
How many electroforged panels should this job really take?
Grate Nesting converts a job’s grating list into a panel list and cutting plan: fewer customised panels, less nesting waste, and fabrication notes for extra bars and joins.
- 3 free runs
- No card
6000 mm usable span
- Panel6000 × 923 mm
- Grating pitch40 × 100 mm
- Load-bar thickness3 mm
- Panel area
- 5.54 m²
- Utilisation, this example
- 97.2%
Measured on 1,071 tonnes of panel steel
What one month of nesting gives back.
One estimator laying panels out by hand covers about 120 panels a day. Set against that workload, on a live grating line between June and September 2026, this is what the nest returned.
A run finishes in one to three minutes and several can be queued, so the manual layout is not reduced — it is removed. Twenty-six person-days a month go back to the estimator who was drawing panels instead of quoting the next job.
Go deeper · the arithmetic →Built for electroforged grating
Nesting that knows how a panel is made
Raw material is the biggest cost on a grating order, and the cutting layout decides how much of it you keep. Grate Nesting plans cuts the way an electroforged panel is actually produced — on the load-bar pitch grid, with the side-by-side gap and frame-bar spans as constraints, not afterthoughts.
- 01
Built for grating, not adapted to it
Load-bar pitch, bar thickness, panel bounds and frame-bar spans are part of the model, not notes for the operator. A general-purpose nester knows none of them and will happily plan a panel the machine cannot make.
- 02
More of every panel becomes product
Pieces are paired across the panel width on the side-by-side gap, so an end strip is not cut off and thrown away.
- 03
Material saved is margin earned
Every panel that stays unopened stays in stock. The result shows utilisation and offcut per panel and for the whole batch.
- 04
Right first time, in minutes
Hours of manual layout become a solver run that usually finishes in one to three minutes — and the plan only ever contains what the machine can build.
- 05
The saving carries to the floor
Fewer panels handled, fewer cuts, and every extra bar or width join listed in the fabrication notes before the job is released.
What changes when the panel plan is known
Material, labour and certainty — accounted for by the plan.
Fewer customised electroforged panels. Less nesting waste.
- Panels and area the job needs
- Span chosen for each panel
- Utilisation and waste by cause
- Narrow and under-utilised panels
Less rework after the saw.
- Panels to be handled
- Split pieces and width joins
- Extra load bars with positions
- Requested and delivered widths
A plan your machine can make.
- Pitch-grid width classification
- Machine span and width bounds
- Frame-bar span reduction
- Preflight before a run is spent
What comes back
Output the shop can use.
The estimator can inspect the result. The fabricator can execute it. Every piece stays traceable to the source row and every adjustment carries a reason.
Stock-panel drawings with piece labels, dimensions and clear offcut areas.
See where pitch alignment changes width and which pieces need an extra load bar.
Bar positions, joins, split information and delivered width are data, not buried prose.
Export the same reviewed result in formats the office and fabrication floor can use.
A utilisation percentage is not enough. See where every piece went and why every offcut remains.
Your demand · Your machine · One inspectable result
Three runs. No card. Your first result in minutes.
Optimise a job — freeEvery new account starts with a prefilled machine configuration and a sample gratings list · One concurrent run