With predefined materials you can pick material from the list when you need it instead of typing all configuration data each time. To be able to predefine materials and use them later in your projects, you have to be authenticated user.

This feature is available to all users, paid and free. Even though you can use Cut Optimizer without creating an account, we recommend that you create one to access the full power of our service.

To define material go to materials page. If you haven’t defined any materials yet you will see an empty table. Click “Add material” to add new material. You will see the following dialog:

The information you configure for the material is basically the same as on configuration page.

• Name – Any name you find suitable for this material.

• Bar Lengths – Standard length(s) of the bar. Multiple lengths are separated by slash e.g. 214/252/288.

• Saw Cut waste – Waste when cutting. For 90 degrees cut this is usually saw width and for other angles it may be slightly more. For example, when cutting aluminum profiles you usually put 5mm for 90 degrees and 15mm for 45 degrees cut.

• Side Cut Waste – This is how much needs to be removed from the bar sides before cutting. You define this to be on the safe side when bar sides are damaged during transport or any other reason. Can be set to zero though.

• Reusable – Piece length you consider reusable. Pieces of this length or longer are usually stored in the warehouse to be reused in some future projects. This value is used in utilization and price calculation where pieces longer than this value are not considered as waste and not included in price calculation.

• Stock – Number of bars in stock. For multiple lengths stock numbers are separated by slash same as lengths e.g. 20/25/18.

• Price – Price per whole bar, length or weight. Price can be defined per whole bar, per length unit (for example per 1000mm or 100 inches), per bar weight (you specify price per 1kg and specify bar weight in kilograms) or per bar weight and unit of length (you specify price per 1kg and weight of 1000mm bar). No need to define units, as long as you use same units in all places. For more information about price calculation check the Price Calculation page.

• Add another – If checked dialog will stay open to add another material.

To edit material, open the menu on the right side of each row in the materials table and click “Edit”:

The same dialog will popup and you’ll be able to edit values. Note that editing materials will affect all projects where that material is used, so when you open each of these projects you will need to run the optimization again to get it in synch with new material values. In the dropdown menu there are also options to clone and delete the material. Note that delete is not possible if material is used in at least one project.