English term for German "Verschachtelung": Specific technology, in which large, often irregularly shaped flat rae materials are divided into smaller pieces with minimal loss of material.

The nesting technology has its origin in the leather industry, which was confronted with the problem of having to put as many cutting patterns as possible onto irregularly shaped raw materials (animal skin).

With the ascent of computers with sufficient graphical performance, it was possible to scan these skins, and to automatically arrange the cutting patterns on the raw material with the lowest possible material losses, and to cut the skins on specialized cutting machines, later on.

nesting in wood processing

In wood processing, the nesting technology was introduced, because the demand for ever more individual forms and the trend of "Losgröße 1" in industrial processing increased dramatically in the late 1990s. Because of the raw material being large rectangular plates, the cutting out of irregular forms always led to high wastage of material.

Therefore, some manufacturers developed CNC-machining centres with special equipment suitable for nesting, which were initially based on already existing models. For this purpose, special nesting software for optimizing the positioning was developed, which made this technology effective in the first place.

From the mid-2000s, more models, meant specifically for nesting technology, were introduced on the market. Many manufacturers have also developed special "nesting cells", which need only one operator for all machines of the complete process chain.

Alternative terms

• Nesting technology
• Interweaving
• Nesting optimization

Special procedures

• THERMWOOD Cut Ready