Benefits of Keeping Material Offcuts in Laser Engraving Business

Material Cutoffs

With many orders coming in from time to time, there are bound to be a lot of material offcuts. If you are in the laser engraving business, one of the lessons you should learn first is to keep these offcuts.

In our laser engraving business, we buy various types of materials to process customers’ orders. Usually, these materials include wood, aluminium, acrylic, leather, paper and much more. Each time we purchase them, there are leftovers that we keep for future use. Material offcuts are, therefore, scraps that remain after removing the larger pieces.

Many times, it’s difficult to anticipate when the material offcuts will be useful. But what you must know is that one day you get to benefit from them. And when that time comes, you make money.

Why Is Keeping Material Offcuts Essential?

Material offcuts increase your profitability. Making more money is the primary benefit of these leftovers. You will always get jobs that you will effectively handle without necessarily having to buy new materials.

For instance, acrylic is a material we always buy to make custom awards. We also use it to make other small products like keychains and name tags. And such jobs come so often. We consider using the offcuts first to make these products. It helps us to maximise our profits and minimise costs. It’s, therefore, prudent to always keep the material leftovers because you stand a chance of making more money.

Best Way to Preserve the Offcuts

If you get many jobs, your material offcuts can accumulate significantly. When this happens, and you have limited space to stock them, it might cause challenges to you. Besides, it’s not prudent to clutter your workshop with these leftovers.

I used to have similar challenges. And before I discovered a better way of keeping the cutoffs, I used to take them to my home. My family members also got concerned.

As a solution, I identified a few small products that customers ordered repeatedly. They included items like keychains, name tags, award bases, etc. So when I receive orders that require using larger material pieces, I also cut shapes for making these smaller things. This practice helps me to retain only useful material parts and discard the unwanted ones.

For instance, if I have an order for making nameplates from a 3 mm thick acrylic material, I can also cut shapes of name tags which I keep for future use. When I get customers who need name badges, I use what I have already cut from the offcuts to process their orders.

Final Thought

Keeping material offcuts is a great way of increasing your profitability. If you want to maximise your productivity and minimise your costs, always preserve them. Secondly, identify products that customers buy regularly and cut their components from the leftovers at the same time. It helps you to have only those pieces that you will use in future.