CAD in the dress-making industry

An action started several years ago in a dress-making factory permitted us to develop the automation of their cutting-out workshop, notably by designing and implementing a method which assumes the automatic research of the garment pieces imbrication over the woven material. In addition, a decision-aid system was developed to determine the medium-term supplying and manufacturing plans.We actually carried out this action within the framework of a project backed by the D.G.R.S.T. (Délégation Générale à la Recherche Scientifique et Technique) to study a computer-aided design system which assists the modelist in the choice of standard elements in function of indicators of costs, cutting-out, making up, assembling and raw material.We analyse, in a first part, the various steps of the design process (from the stylist's sketch to the manufacture ranges) by displaying the computer tools we can associate with them. We then approach the problems linked with the utilized materials, by introducing first, in reference to a library or a trial, the dimensional adjustments to introduce so as to eliminate some deformations which can appear in wearing, and then, by studying the quantify of material required for the manufacture and by verifying that the consequent cost allows to attain the commercial objective that we have defined. In the end of the dialogue, the retained garment prototype responds to a compromise between the production cost and respecting the initial stylist's idea.We at last develop the methodology retained to build and manage the data base which represents the factory savoir-faire, and to integrate the whole graphic and technological information which permits products to continue at each production step.