Aurelia: Comelz’s solution for cutting

Perhaps it is a bit obvious to mention that such a large installed base is a fundamental asset for Comelz. From it, in fact, the company gathers input every year that enables it to make its software ever more efficient and productive. An extremely varied customer base that includes small cutting centers, Italian factories of the most important luxury maisons and large factories of international manufacturing.
I think it is safe to say that the CAD software market for technical pattern design of shoe and bag has been mature and well established for years now offering several high-profile solutions. In this article, therefore, we have decided not to go into the details of how Comelz’s CAD software continues to evolve and improve every year but will focus completely on the Aurelia system, the software platform that Develer, the Tuscan company of more than 80 professionals that Comelz acquired in 2018, has been developing for years now for it to become the leading technology in companies’ offerings along with cutting machines.
In summary, we can say that Aurelia is the software created to enable real-time information exchange between factory management, production planning, technical development, management accounting, and manufacturing. So let us analyze in more detail how this software aims to create a discontinuity in fashion manufacturing.

Sharing technical data securely
From today, Comelz’s CAD software for technical pattern drafting can choose whether to store files on the computer of the technician who created them or within the shared archive of the Aurelia system. The goal is clear: to create a repository where all technical development and production data can be cataloged and organized so that it is available to all company departments. In a first phase the technical model files but soon the entire product spec sheet.
Aurelia was created as a software environment to support the cutting center. It seems clear why, in addition to CAD patterns, the “digital twin” of each material to be cut can be stored within Aurelia. The operator on board a Nek table can digitize the outline of a leather, identify the different quality areas, demarcating those parts that should not be used, highlight the position and type of any defects. The result of this work is a file that can be stored within Aurelia. If the advantage of storing material data within Aurelia is not obvious, think of the possibility of calculating pattern consumption on actual hides but also the opportunity to analyze the actual nesting to continuously improve cutting efficiency.
Companies cannot afford to lose data, and they need to do all that is required to prevent cyber-attacks that compromise the integrity and availability of data. To ensure the security of the data stored inside Aurelia archives and therefore the business continuity of its customers, the Comelz Group has chosen the path of independent certification. A specialized third-party company annually tests the software by performing “intrusion tests” in search of possible vulnerabilities.
The Aurelia system is a web-app that is, an application accessible through a web browser. The typical proposed installation is on a server in the cutting center. This architecture allows an advantageous proximity to the machines with which Aurelia exchanges data i.e., dialogues continuously. However, a different architecture is also possible: Comelz can provide a server by hosting it at its infrastructure.
Today Comelz software licenses are “floating” that is, they can be used on different computers without the need for a physical dongle. In fact, Aurelia also plays the role of “license server” and dynamically verifies compliance with the contractual conditions. All software can be installed on multiple locations, and it is the server that will verify that the number of concurrent users does not exceed the number of available licenses. The advantage for the company is obvious: a technician with a username and the appropriate security permissions can open on any workstation a file stored in Aurelia, modify it and save it again.

Organizing production
Aurelia connects to the main management information systems used in the fashion industry to automatically receive cutting orders. In the case of Dedagroup’s Stealth solution, Aurelia is the only platform currently natively integrated: it not only receives  data automatically but also returns the status of each ticket.
For those factories who do not have an enterprise production management information system installed, Aurelia at its core contains the tools to create cutting orders independently quickly and easily. This feature can also be very useful in the integration scenario if it becomes necessary in production to create “rework” orders without going through the upstream system.
The orders transmitted to Aurelia through integration with the company’s information system and those entered directly by Aurelia are conveyed into a production plan from which the cutting center manager can manage work scheduling by assigning each ticket to each individual machine and eliminating the typical handing of paper.
It then becomes easy to know at any time and in real time the progress of each ticket, and it is also possible to adjust the program, changing the job queue of each machine to balance the workload and achieve the best performance.
By combining the different software offered by Comelz, it is possible to organize different workflows that fit the way the client companies have organized their processes. By way of example only, it is worth mentioning the Calcon module, which makes it possible to modify and adjust patterns for cutting right from the cutting machine (e.g. margins, reference marks, markings, holes, etc.) in case the company prefers to add these technical details while cutting rather than at CAD.

Collect data from machines and monitor production
When Aurelia is opened, the first page that is displayed is the dashboard where performance indicators are shown: to mention a few the number of hides processed, the net area of pieces cut, the efficiency percentages of the machines. All of this can be analyzed over any time interval, a single shift or an entire year, by individual machine, by department, or overall for the entire cutting center.
From the moment it is connected through the local network to Comelz machines, Aurelia begins to gather data, compliant to Industry 4.0, not only those data that allow for performance analysis i.e., cutting center efficiency, but also data useful for predictive maintenance i.e., identifying and solving potential causes of malfunction. Aurelia also collects, stores and makes available the individual operating parameters set on each machine. The goal is to keep each machine at its maximum potential and provide those who manage the cutting department with all the information they need to adjust course.
While gathering data from the machines of the cutting department, Aurelia can receive all the individual events and show a detailed timeline where preparation and nesting times, actual cutting times, and idle times are shown along with performance indicators. The GL software on board the CZ cutting machines interacts with the operator and requires simple yet comprehensive entry of detailed information that provides an analytical understanding of the causes of any delays with a view to continuous improvement.
It is possible to define standards for each of the processes and consequently analyze the deviations between actual performance (of consumption and time) compared to the standards. However, when the technical data of individual hides, from the Nek tables, are also present within Aurelia, it is possible to achieve a very detailed level of analysis that shows for each individual hide how the nesting of pieces with respect to quality areas was performed.
A function has also been developed within Aurelia that allows the cutting center manager to connect from his or her location in real time to each machine and share the screen with the operator without having to install third-party products (e.g. TeamViewer).
Data export in Excel format is also available, where there is a need to do further downstream analysis.

Consumption simulation
Since both model technical data and information on the materials to be cut are available within Aurelia, Comelz decided to bring the typical functions of the renown ST Plus software for calculating consumption into Aurelia. The ideal environment is thus created within which to determine an accurate estimate of expected consumption for new projects.
The next step was to sophisticate the consumption calculation simulation in two different ways. First, the same GL software that runs the CZ cutting machines was implemented within Aurelia. Since the operating parameters of the machines and the typical efficiency of each of them are known, it is possible to accurately determine the total time required to complete a cutting order.
In addition, the “mix optimizer” function takes advantage of machine idle time to process simulation algorithms and propose strategies to optimize cutting efficiency, for example, by proposing the cutting of different patterns where the interlocking of part geometries allow maximum material utilization.