How many pieces does a sheet yield?
You have six sheets in different sizes, and a customer wants 12 pieces at 1.2×0.8. Which one do you cut? Cut the big sheet and you lose one that would have served a bigger order; cut the small one and it may not be enough. That decision costs time and a walk to the warehouse, and it is usually made by instinct rather than arithmetic. Zemam works it out before anyone picks up the saw.
The idea in a minute
You type the size and the quantity, and Zemam answers with three things: the pieces you already have at that exact size (taken as they are, cutting nothing), the smallest sheet that can yield the remainder, and — if something is still short — how many. The decision is in front of you as numbers before you start.
How it thinks
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1. First: is there a ready size?
Before any talk of cutting, Zemam looks through the warehouse for pieces at exactly the size asked for — and counts them correctly when they are turned (1.2×0.8 is the same as 0.8×1.2). If it finds them it takes them as they are, oldest first, and proposes no cut at all. The simplest cut is the one that never happens: you already have the piece, take it.
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2. Nothing ready? The smallest sheet that does the job
This is where the money is. When a cut is needed, Zemam sorts the sheets the size fits into from smallest to largest and recommends the smallest one that covers the order — not the first it finds, nor the nearest to the door. Because cutting a small order out of a big sheet means you burned a sheet that would have served another order, and that loss never shows up in any report.
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3. Several pieces? It lays them out in one go
You do not cut them one at a time. You say you need 12 pieces at that size, and Zemam works out how many fit across a row and how many rows that takes, then lays them onto the sheet in a single operation. It also tells you the most that sheet can yield at all — so if you ask for more than it holds, it answers with the number you can actually have instead of simply refusing.
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4. And it tries the piece turned, too
The same piece can be laid onto the sheet two ways: as you typed it, or turned 90 degrees. The difference is not cosmetic — one may yield 12 pieces and the other 15, and one may leave a large usable offcut where the other leaves slivers. Zemam plans both, shows you both, recommends one, and leaves the choice to you.
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5. And it recommends by fewest unusable slivers
Note the criterion is not “least leftover area”. Two square metres left in one decent piece is far better than two square metres in three thin strips. So Zemam measures the leftovers whose short side is smaller than the short side of the piece you are cutting — the leftovers that can never yield another piece of that size — and recommends the layout that minimises them. After that it prefers the biggest single leftover, then the fewest leftovers.
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6. The offcut stays as stock with value — or you write it off as you cut
Every offcut a cut produces gets a number and enters stock at its size, so it can be sold later or cut again. And if there is a strip you know is useless, you mark it during the cut and it is written off in the same step with the cost booked — no separate adjustment to come back to later and forget. All of it still adds up to the original sheet exactly: a cut never creates or loses a metre in the books.
In short
You type the size and the count; the system names the sheet to cut — and takes ready sizes without cutting at all.
It lays the whole order out in rows in one go, and tells you the most that sheet can yield.
It plans the piece as typed and turned 90 degrees and compares, because the difference can be three whole pieces.
It recommends the layout leaving the fewest unusable slivers — not the least leftover area.
The limits, stated plainly
One sheet at a time — not nesting
Everything above happens on one sheet: this order, this sheet. Zemam does not spread ten different orders across your whole stock and produce a cutting plan with the least total waste — that is what a dedicated nesting program does. If nesting across orders is the heart of your trade, you will want one alongside Zemam.
Straight rectangles only
Cuts run edge to edge, the way glass and stone are actually cut. No curved or shaped cutting, and no CAD import. If your work is shapes, this part will not serve you.
No blade-width allowance
The maths is purely geometric: the pieces add up to the sheet. Real loss to the blade's thickness or to trimming is not part of it — if that is a material number for you, build a margin into the size you ask for.
Grain and veining are not considered
The layout is computed from size alone. The direction of marble veining or of a fabric's grain is a human decision, and the system shows you the layout before you commit so you can change it or pick the other orientation.
Related reading
Want to see it on your own sheets?
Send us your sheet sizes and one real order size, and we will show you the recommendation, the layout and the offcuts on one screen.